The Canadian Bureau for International Education has rolled out a nationwide communications campaign, Learning Beyond Borders, to encourage students to study abroad.
The campaign aims to kickstart an uptick in the proportion of Canadian students spending time studying overseas. Just 2.3% of university students studied abroad in 2014/15, the association’s latest figures show.
“Canada is faced with the challenge of getting more of our students to take advantage of learning experiences in other countries”
This is despite research from CBIE that suggests a much higher number of students are in fact interested in studying abroad.
Since the campaign launched at CBIE’s national conference in November last year, 87 education institutions have signed up as partners of the initiative, committing to removing internal barriers (such as funding and credit transfer) to learning abroad.
And beginning this week, education institutions have been asked create content on the impact and outcomes of learning abroad and share it using the #LearningAbroad hashtag on social media.
Join @CentennialEDU in sharing your inspiring stories of #LearningAbroad with @CBIE_BCEI: https://t.co/vKabh4jJ2J #iexperiencecentennial pic.twitter.com/YBS6LKcBDt
— Centennial IE (@CentennialIE) February 23, 2017
Institutions at all levels, including universities, colleges, polytechnics, cégeps and K-12 school boards, are invited to get involved in the campaign.
“Canada is faced with the challenge of getting more of our students to take advantage of learning experiences in other countries,” commented Karen McBride, CBIE’s president and CEO.
“It is time to leverage the leadership role of education institutions in a concerted and coordinated effort to give our generation of young leaders the knowledge, skills and global outlook they will need to thrive in our interconnected world.”
