“Ricky understands the impact that education can have on the world, and on the lives of students,” said Ryan Trainor, co-founder of Adventus. “This fits with our vision that studying abroad is more than just education, it’s the start of a new journey.”
A federal inquiry into international education has raised concerns that online aggregation sites might be contributing to problematical behaviours, including some non-genuine students.
The Australian Financial Review reported last month that there had been sharp increases in the number of Indian students who either arrive in Australia but never step foot in their institution or abandon their course shortly after starting.
Agent aggregators are changing the traditional student recruitment environment by linking large numbers of institutions with an even larger pool of education agents.
Critics say the removal of human interactions means that agents can subcontract to other agents and so on down the line, allowing unethical actors into the pipeline. It also removes visibility on which agents are recruiting for institutions.
The federal inquiry, chaired by Labor senator Deb O’Neill, heard last month that some institutions deemed aggregation sites “too risky”.
“There has been a shift significantly, I guess in the last couple of years, to go to aggregators,” Judith Uren, director of international with the Victorian TAFE Association, told the inquiry.
“So you don’t know who your agents are, you [don’t] have a core relationship with an agent, and they use sub-agents. Within Victoria, none of the TAFEs use that arrangement because it’s too risky.
National code
“If there were some openness and transparency about what fees [they] were getting it would certainly make them much more accountable.”
Bruce Bradfield, international market manager with William Angliss TAFE, also pointed to the lack of transparency, for institutions and students.
“Applying for 10 universities and taking the best offer online is not the way to go when it comes to counselling students, which is one of the obligations under the national code, to make sure students are informed, they know what they’re doing and they pick the right course,” he said. “You can’t do that by doing a pro forma online.
“Now you can go to agency websites and the first or second tab at the top of the page is ‘become an agent’. Anyone can become an agent – uncle, aunty, brother, sister, guy down the road – and you share the commission depending on the arrangement with that super-agent.”
The inquiry has spent much time discussing the need to regulate education agents, but at this stage that would only be possible for those based in Australia.
Mr Bradfield told the inquiry that aggregation sites had “grown like topsy” since the pandemic.
“Aggregators are at the top of the list of things that really need to be addressed in some way, but they are massive machines now,” he said.
“The feedback from the good agents is, ‘we are being squeezed.’
“Some of the big international agents are saying that ‘we can’t beat them; we must join them’ attitude is coming up again. [They are] saying, ‘We must go online and aggregate,’ which I think is a dangerous pathway.”
However, Mr Rajeevan said all agents who worked through the Adventus platform were screened for quality, had to go through a vetting process and were constantly monitored.
“We screen the applications as they come in, and who are the students, and if we come across something like fraudulent documents, we terminate them,” he said.
