Last week, Universities Australia, Independent Tertiary Education Council Australia and Independent Higher Education Australia welcomed Jason Clare on his appointment as minister for education. Along with addressing the skills shortages for degree-educated workers, conducting Australia’s research and helping to tackle the challenge of climate and energy transition, universities can find ways to navigate through a challenging geopolitical landscape and the sensitivities in our region, chief executive Catriona Jackson reminded. ITECA added that new minister for Skills and Training Brendan O’Connor can “look to the nation’s independent skills training sector with confidence as it leads on several key measures of employer and student satisfaction”. “We look forward to working with Ministers…

EduNova, a co-operative association of education providers in the Canadian province, says it has launched its training program to ensure that agents are “equipped to provide high-quality seamless support to prospective international students”. The Canadian Bureau for International Education will deliver the training online and the course will cover the Canadian education system, the post-secondary options available in Nova Scotia, and the immigration pathways available to overseas students.  The free training is specifically targeted at agents working with Nova Scotia’s post-secondary institutions, with the aim of decreasing study permit rejection rates and increasing the number of international students studying in…

Short on time? Here are the highlights: The Intensive English Programme (IEP) sector in the US is looking ahead to recovery after another challenging year in 2021 Total student weeks declined by 9.1% year-over-year Fewer enrolments and student weeks from Asia are prompting US IEPs to intensify their recruitment in Latin America The latest annual survey data from the Institute of International Education (IIE) indicates that there were 5.3% more international students in US Intensive English Programmes (IEPs) in 2021 compared with 2020.  However, student weeks fell by a further 9.1% after declining by 51% in 2020. The data was…

CEO and founder, Fahed Jaarah, told The PIE News that the main aim of the seed fund round was to “scale fast” due to daily requests by sub-agents to join the network and access partner schools. “With this funding we continue to build our technology and also we are expanding in important regions such as Africa, Gulf state,  Jordan, India and Pakistan,” he said. Jaarah added that the number of requests from universities and student sign-ups had reached unexpected numbers – greater than their capacity. Startbase reported that the funding has come from an anonymous family office in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany,…

In May 2022, the Canadian Parliament’s Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration tabled its report, ‘Differential Treatment in Recruitment and Acceptance Rates of Foreign Students in Quebec and in the Rest of Canada.‘ The Committee’s aim was to study the recruitment and acceptance rates of foreign students in Quebec and in the rest of Canada, including francophone students from African countries. It wanted to understand the realities of increasing processing times and higher refusal rates and their impact on students and institutions. During the course of its inquiry the Committee received 22 written submissions and heard from 31 witnesses in…

Published on June 2nd, 2022 at 09:00am EDT The Canadian government is set to make the biggest reform to Express Entry since it introduced the application management system in January 2015. Bill C-19 is currently being evaluated by Canada’s Parliament and based on precedent, should become law sometime in June before Parliament recesses for the summer. It contains a provision that would allow Canada’s Immigration Minister to create Express Entry groups and then issue Invitations to Apply (ITAs) to these groups. As explained by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), the minister would be able to form groups based on…

International students would be more likely to consider studying in the UK if they were allowed to stay and work for three years instead of two, a survey suggests.Foreign students have been able to stay on and work in the UK for two years after completing their course since July last year, when the government reinstated the two-year post-study work visa after years of pressure from universities.Vivienne Stern, the director of Universities UK International, said vice-chancellors wanted the government to review whether the two-year visa forms were “a barrier to employing international graduates”, and ensure the UK had a “competitive…

Laws preventing Australian universities from giving advice on post-study work visas mean that international students looking to stay and work in the country often rely on information from migration agents, who, in some cases, can act unethically, according to a new paper published in interdisciplinary journal Evaluation Review. The study, which drew on interviews with 50 university staff, migration agents and international graduates, found that many universities in Australia avoid giving advice related to temporary graduate visa applications due to legal restrictions. In Australia, only registered migration agents are legally allowed to provide migration advice. The authors of the study…

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…