Speaking at the annual AIRC conference this month, outgoing executive director John Deupree recognised the organisation’s pivotal role in helping the field of international recruitment “mature and grow” but said it is now at a crossroads.

“We have kept our moral imperative and marketing imperative in balance; our greatest challenge at this crossroads will be prioritising,” he told delegates.

“We’ve created an environment where there are people thinking about broader business models”

Speaking later with The PIE News, he explained:  “We’ve created an environment where there are people thinking about broader business models…Groups are growing now that do agencies and pathways and marketing.”

“There are people who think that our job is to help agencies find institutions and institutions to find agencies, we started out doing that. But then other groups see us as a standards body. That’s a different point of view,” he said.

One challenge the organisation continues to face, Deupree noted, is defining what an agency is to US recruitment professionals.

“For certification purposes AIRC has a very specific definition of an agency, but a lot of institutions in the US don’t understand that there are agencies that focus on institutional partnerships, and agencies that focus on student partnerships,” he said.

“So when an institution in the US says ‘I’m not going to use agencies’, I think there’s some evidence that some of them are sticking their heads in the sand because they don’t realise that students themselves are using agencies.”

Established in 2008, the organisation has one of the most robust certification processes in the field. Its membership includes institutions, pathway providers, affiliate members and around 70 agencies. By the end of the year it will have eight more newly certified agencies.

Agents attending the event commended the work of AIRC in opening the minds of US institutions to using commission-based agents to recruit students, but agreed that the agency landscape in the US is shifting.

“AIRC has helped to better relationships between agents and institutions but they need to go beyond that to get to public advocacy and influence the Department of Education, get things working towards student retention, focussing on different markets and working together,” said Sushil Sukhwani, director of India-based Edwise International.

“AIRC has raised the issue, and I think people now know that this is where it’s heading. I think most of them have tried to do it on their own and just realised that it’s almost impossible,” said Mark Lucas, group director of business development and administration of iae Global.

“AIRC now has to evolve into a service rather than just purely a certification”

“AIRC now has to evolve into a service rather than just purely a certification. They’ve got to provide service to their agents and service to their institutions.”

Newly appointed executive director, Mike Finnell, said maintaining the balance between morals and marketing will be important as he aims to expand the group’s global influence.

“We have to be active, AIRC has developed a good brand, it’s got a fantastic reputation for those who’ve been inside the room at our conference with some of the tools we’ve put together, but we’re underrepresented or not even represented in some key countries around the world.”

Part of that expansion will be working with overseas partners to develop a global standard of agency use. Phil Honeywood, CEO of the International Education Association of Australia, is spearheading a national agent framework in Australia but told delegates that there is a good amount of overlap in best practice guides around the world.

“The key to the future is to have an AIRC equivalent in every country,” he said. Lucas agreed that as agency use becomes more widespread in the US, AIRC’s role in maintaining a standard of practices will be critical.

“The reason we stay with it isn’t because we need it but personally I believe because it’s the future,” he said.

“There’s too much money floating around this industry that attracts a lot of people who shouldn’t be in it, so you have to have some level of control of who gets into the industry and I think certification is one of the best ways.”