The Role of Education Agents

The recruitment of international students to the University is a critical component of long-term sustainability, development and growth. The benefits of a diverse student community are clear and the University places significant importance on continuing international recruitment success as a key area of strategic value.

While the University recruits international students from several sources, our education agency partners contribute a significant majority of international student enrolments, particularly in non-China recruitment markets. At present, the University is represented overseas by over 100 agency partners, all seeking to support students in choosing our university for their studies. The role and influence of the education agent in university recruitment is often heavily scrutinised but they remain a fundamental component of any successful international recruitment strategy. In this article, we will seek to illustrate some of the areas where our agents support our recruitment objectives and how we engage with them to support international student enrolment at Huddersfield.

The global pandemic, and the related shift in approach to how we deliver on international recruitment, has seen the importance of agencies increase as travel restrictions and reduced opportunity for in-person, direct student engagement impacted on our capacity to recruit.

The recruitment environment has been fundamentally changed with online, technology-led approaches replacing traditional event-based recruitment for much of the last two years. As we emerge from the pandemic, we have an opportunity to review how and where our agency partners can support us in the next phase of our development. Traditionally, our agency partners have been key in introducing potential students to the University of Huddersfield through the delivery of recruitment events, marketing and promotional campaigns and in-person education counselling through teams of trained education counsellors. In addition, they have supported students through complex and daunting visa and immigration processes in advance of their studies and have played a key role in protecting the University’s UKVI sponsor license. Over time, accelerated by the emergence and increased prevalence of technology and online solutions, that role is evolving with new agencies emerging with many new approaches and structures for international student recruitment. The traditional, in-person counselling model is being increasingly supplemented by online support and admissions management with cross-border expansion of agencies an increasingly significant factor to consider. The emergence of ‘aggregator’ agencies acting as submissions hubs for admissions from large sub-agency networks threatens to weaken the link between the University and students and, as such, this has placed increased importance on our capacity to manage our trusted partner networks and to ensure the University continues to recruit successfully with appropriate partners, in a safe and compliant manner, and always with the best interests of our students in mind.

In appointing and retaining agencies in our network, the University’s International Office consider some key factors.


Market diversity


Application and enrolment profile


Profile Development

 

The ongoing role of the International Recruitment and Admissions teams, supported by our colleagues in Schools and broader professional services, is to manage our agent relationships to achieve our desired strategic aims of international recruitment development and growth and improved applicant and student experience and outcomes.