The dissatisfaction of potential Nigerian students is understandable. As the country with the third highest English proficiency in Africa, and a country that uses English as the Lingua Franca, there is strong ground for protesters to stand on. Exempting Nigeria from IELTS would however have a plethora of implications, ranging from equity issues across other countries required to take the tests, to the financials of the organisations responsible for administering IELTS. The petition was started at the end of last year by Policy Shapers, a Nigerian youth-led policy advocacy group. The founder, Ebenezar Wikina, started the petition after an online university…

Short on time? Here are the highlights: A new school survey finds that ELT enrolments continued to decline last year While there are signs of optimism for 2022, overall student numbers were down by 78% in 2021, against the pre-pandemic benchmark of 2019, with student weeks down by 71% over the same period The Association of Language Travel Organisations (ALTO) has been tracking industry sentiment and expectations for recovery in its quarterly pulse surveys throughout much of the pandemic. One finding in particular stands out from the most recent survey cycle. Where earlier editions of the pulse survey found that…

Short on time? Here are the highlights: Following strong foreign enrolment growth in 2021, a new report from UCAS projects surging demand for undergraduate programmes in the UK over the next five years Much of that growth is expected to come from China and India, which remain by far the most important sending markets for the UK A new report from the UK’s central admissions service, UCAS, projects continuing strong demand for British higher education – in particular, that the volume of international undergraduate applicants will increase by 46% through 2026. Drawing on UCAS data as well as an early 2022…

AHMEDABAD: Human smugglers have not only been forging identity documents, but also compromised the International English Language Testing System (IELTS). It is now known that the IELTS paper robbery in Mehsana in February was executed by human smugglers from Gujarat and Punjab. “During the investigation, we found the involvement of one person who used different names such as Munnabbhai, Baka Bhai, Charles, Joseph, Moldy, Jack, Prince, Anthony and so on. Technical surveillance and human intelligence suggests that there was one person who promised to provide IELTS papers before the exam so examinees who wanted to go to the US could…

Key to the country’s future international education sector is people-to-people connections and personal relationships, rather than the economic impact of international students, New Zealand’s education minister told The PIE, as he joined a delegation visiting the 2022 NAFSA conference. The country has also launched a new global marketing campaign. “Within the international education sector in New Zealand there is a good degree of consensus about what we’re trying to achieve,” Chris Hipkins said in Denver. The country has announced an “immigration rebalance” and a consultation on an updated New Zealand International Education Strategy, which will close on June 24. Grant McPherson, chief…

The latest Key Data Update from StudyMove, The impact of inflation on international education, is showing strong positive signs in student visa applications and commencements, according to managing director Keri Ramirez. “Since the announcement of the opening of the borders [in October], we have seen a very healthy, positive trend in the number of student visas launched for higher education in Australia,” he said. “In fact, we are very, very close to pre-pandemic levels. We have about 2,000 visas short per month in comparison to those pre-pandemic levels. So that shows that for the second half of 2022 and the first…

Education New Zealand Manapou ki te Ao at the NAFSA Conference in Denver, Colorado has announced a global marketing campaign emphasising New Zealand’s attributes for international students. The country opens for business on 31 July after two years of closed borders. The campaign focuses on stories of eight international students from China, Colombia, Germany, India, Japan, Thailand, USA, and Vietnam. The students aim to share their experience in New Zealand.  Education New Zealand invites these students to work alongside Kiri Nathan, Māori fashion designer, to collaborate on designing education garments focused on manaakitanga (care of people), kaitiakitanga (care of place),…

In its latest progress update, jointly published on May 25 by the Department for International Trade and the Department for Education, the government says it has made “positive progress” against its two key ambitions.  The first of these, set out in the original strategy launched in 2019, was a target of 600,000 international higher education students in the UK – the country reached this in the 2020-21 academic year, 10 years ahead of the goal date.  The second was to increase education exports to £35 billion per year by 2030. In 2019 (the latest data available) this was worth an…

Ontario election: Immigrant vote could be deciding factor in GTA swing ridings – New Canadian Media Source