Quality and transparency in the use of education agents were key themes in the fifth annual American International Recruitment Council (AIRC) conference this month. The four-day event was attended by 240 representatives from a range of agencies and US education institutions and was the first conference since NACAC reversed its policy against the use of commissioned agents in international student recruitment.
NACAC revised its Statement of Principles of Good Practice (SPGP) in September this year, giving the go-ahead for its 13,000 members to pay commission to international education agents.
“This development can only be good for US higher education for international students”
Discussions at the conference about how to promote ethical practices in student recruitment – for AIRC members, there is no question as to whether the use of agents is unethical – reflected changing attitudes in the US market, which has historically been a more hostile environment for agents than countries such as Australia and the UK.
However, some agent delegates indicated they feel that attitudes within AIRC are not yet representative of the wider market.
David Adler, owner and CEO of the recently AIRC certified Ustudy in Israel, said, “As more and more people start using agents and understanding what agents do and how they can benefit from that without hurting their reputation… a few years from now I think it’s going to be a very acceptable way of doing business. It’s not there yet.”
Concerns were raised during a session on transparency in agent-institution relationships about institutions failing to disclose their relationship with agents.
Mitch Leventhal, Vice Chancellor for Global Affairs at the State University of New York and co-founder of AIRC, said that institutions must be “unambiguously transparent” about their use of agents, and challenged the way in which conversations about transparency tend to focus solely on the role of the agent.
Similarly, some AIRC agent members expressed concerns about institutions asking for a degree of transparency or disclosure from their partners that they are unwilling to reciprocate.
Several conference speakers emphasised the need for institutions to train and work actively with agents in order to ensure that they are well informed. AIRC’s Executive Director John Deupree stressed that “institutions bear as much responsibility as agents in ensuring a smooth transition for students”.
“Institutions bear as much responsibility as agents in ensuring a smooth transition for students”
Looking to the future, hopes were voiced that AIRC and NACAC will work together as AIRC expands its membership, with a view to its certification process becoming a universally recognised standard for agents in the industry.
AIRC President Stephen Foster told The PIE News that he foresaw two main developments for the council in the near future: “we hope that we’ll see some pretty significant growth on the side of institutions who want to be members without being concerned about being in conflict with [NACAC]; and secondly, I hope it can lead to some collaboration with NACAC.”
Leventhal confirmed that the two organisations now had a synergistic relationship. “After five years, AIRC, which began as essentially a reaction to the policy ambiguity that existed, is now completely aligned with NACAC,” he told The PIE News.
“This means now that the two organisations can work together, with AIRC focusing on professional development and regulation of agents, and NACAC emphasising the same for institutions that are recruiting internationally,” he said. “This development can only be good for US higher education for international students.”
