New Forum aims to address the needs of UKI students and their progression to Higher Education.
Why is this needed?
There are approximately 29,000 international students studying at UK Boarding schools and another almost 8,000 expat students. It is hard for individual Universities to engage directly with Boarding schools, as it is estimated there are over 500 Boarding schools in the UK with international students.
So, BSA/BAISIS, UK Education Guide and the Universities of Exeter and Sheffield have set up a new UKI Student & School Forum to help Universities better meet the needs of these students and work more closely with schools.
As Caroline Nixon, Director International Director at the BSA points out, “we asked schools how they were helping their international students to make really informed University decisions. Many were trying to engage directly with Universities, but the logistics for a single school to work with a large, representative sample of Universities is hard. Also, many schools struggle to arrange multiple University visits for their international students.”
Pat Moores, co-Founder of UK Education Guide adds; “it is so hard for parents living overseas to support schools and their children in making really well informed Higher Education decisions, something domestic students take for granted, so the idea for the Forum was developed.”
Who is involved and how was the need assessed?
BSA/BAISIS, UK Education Guide and selected Universities ran an introductory webinar on 5th May with over 35 Boarding school representatives attending.
The event helped highlight the real ‘pinch points’ for schools in helping them properly support their international students with the University research and decision making. A follow up questionnaire developed and evaluated by UK Education Guide, and completed by school representatives also helped really quantify the most challenging areas which include; Personal statement development, understanding Visa requirements, exploring Foundation programme options & English language support in higher education. Hence the launch of the UKI School & Student Forum.
The Forum’s next Event will be a Virtual Recruitment Fair aimed just at UKI and expat students on 29th September. The Fair will offer University booths for pupils to visit, presentations throughout the day and the opportunity for pupils to book 1:1 guidance sessions to review Personal Statements and gain valuable feedback on UCAS applications.
“For me, this is a really exciting development; accessing cohorts of UKI students in boarding schools is very difficult, but this potential development will offer an opportunity to get access to the right people in these schools to be able to develop relationships,” says Laura Laura Drinkwater, Regional Manager (UK International and Europe), University of Exeter.
What does success for the Forum look like?
Jess Heaney, Senior Student recruitment officer (Postgraduate and UK based international) from University of Sheffield; also expressed the view that “collaboration between Universities to really meet UKI student needs is almost certainly the way forward and we welcome the chance, via the Forum, to work together to achieve the best outcomes. We hope this is the start of a really meaningful and long term collaboration”.
Full launch article here thepienews.com/news/uki-student-school-forum-launched/
More articles here
ukeducationguide.com/blog/