Jon Aizlewood

In a letter leaked to the Daily Mail, UK minister for universities, David Willetts has argued that international students should be removed from net migration figures to prevent a dwindling of legitimate students coming to the UK. The revelation puts him at odds with fellow cabinet members who want to slash student visas by 2015.

Boosting student exchange and mobility in the Pacific Rim region was high on the agenda at the recent APEC summit in Vladivostok, Russia, as Australia and Russia prioritised a deal to open up the region's higher education market. With 21 member nations in APEC, any unilateral student exchange deal could lead to a strong student mobility programme akin to Europe's Erasmus exchange programme.

I don’t that UK EFL is resistant to innovation and change... I think that as a good competitive group of schools they are typically looking for ways to innovate and to try to bring value to the student, and they do that quite well...

University students in Paraguay with outstanding academic records but limited financial resources are being offered three-year scholarships to study English in their country to help prepare them for the Fulbright scholarship programme. The US Embassy works with the private sector on the programme.

The South African government has proposed an internationalisation strategy to strengthen economic and political relations with other countries, saying that although internationalisation exists at individual institutions it remains uncoordinated at the national level. It has plans for boosting exchange within Africa and building links globally.

Hobsons has launched a new Virtual Orientation app in the UK, mainland Europe and the Middle East. The app offers detailed orientation for prospective that is customised and institution-specific. It also announced a new partnership with University of Limerick in Ireland this week.

The number of students around the world considering transnational education is rising and “there is still unexploited potential in the TNE market”, according to a new British Council survey. In 2010, 17% of more than 21,000 prospective international students expressed interest in TNE, however, 28% of 11,000 students surveyed so far this year showed interest.

How to maximise the customer relationship was the challenge tackled by Luis Huete, business expert and resident professor at IESE Business School in Spain, at the latest ALTO seminar organised in London, UK...

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the USA has risen to the top of QS's latest global university rankings, unveiled today, with its international faculty one reason for its dominance. The US institution knocked Cambridge University in the UK from the top spot which it had held for two years.

The number of students enrolled in tertiary education outside of their country of origin reached 4.1 million in 2010, according to new research from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development – up from 3.7 million in 2009 and by a staggering 99% since 2000.