GLOBAL: Networking with recruitment agents

With exceptional growth rates, the ICEF Higher Education Workshop, which took place in Antwerp, Belgium last month showed there was a need for a specialised networking event where representatives of higher education institutions could meet student recruitment agents focused on sending students to universities.

A total of 153 participants from 52 countries and six continents attended the workshop with the goal of improving the quality and quantity of international student enrolments. These numbers represented a 68% increase in the number of attending organisations and a 50% increase in the number of countries represented compared with last year's event in Trondheim, Norway.

The 64 educators were pleased with the quality of the agents attending. Steffen Tabel from International University of Applied Sciences Bad Honnef, Germany, explained: "This has been an outstanding workshop experience; a very good opportunity to get in contact with new agents and to establish future relations. We very much appreciate the pre-screening of the agents by ICEF as this definitely secures high-quality participants."

In addition to the one-to-one business appointments with agents, educators also met to discuss exchange programmes, twinning arrangements and joint ventures. The 37 meetings that took place highlighted the trend of educational institutions taking steps to establish global partners.

Next year's workshop will take place in Madrid from 13-15 September, just prior to and in the same city as the Annual Conference of the European Association for International Education (www.eaie.org). Thousands of education professionals will then meet to discuss and share ideas on the internationalisation of higher education in Europe and around the world.