Results from education firm INTO’s survey of over 800 partner education agents and 2,000 students worldwide show a growing interest in China for study over traditional non-English speaking destinations, more promotion of online courses and a slight dip in applications made via education agents despite overall high levels of satisfaction among students.
Education agents are promoting study destinations in Asia more than traditional destinations Germany and France the survey results revealed exclusively to The PIE News show.
“What we have noticed is the rapid increase in Latin American and sub-Saharan African agencies promoting China”
China specifically has seen a huge promotional increase among agents with 20% of the 880 surveyed INTO partner counsellors across 63 countries saying they sent students to the country, up from 3% in last year’s survey.
Growth of transnational education in the region, improved quality of local universities and increased degree courses offered in English are attracting students to the region the company said.
“There’s been a lot of reports that China is becoming the third largest destination for international students so it’s interesting to see that agents are picking up on that,” Director of INTO Knowledge, Tim O’Brien told The PIE News.
INTO has been heavily promoting its centres at Nankai University and Dongbei University of Finance and Economics since they opened in 2012 but O’Brien said exterior factors have also contributed to the country’s popularity among agents.
“What we have noticed is the rapid increase in Latin American and sub-Saharan African agencies promoting China,” O’Brien said. “All linked no doubt to increasing Chinese investment in those regions.”
TNE hotspots in Asia also ranked higher than France and Germany among agents, 28% of respondents said they sent students to Singapore and 22% to Malaysia.
“Perhaps US institutions are beginning to wake up to the opportunities of using agents”
Still, English speaking education superpowers make up the top destination countries for agents. Seventy-eight per cent said they send students to the UK, 77% to the US and 51% to Australia.
As a destination which has historically shown antipathy towards working with agents, the US’s presence in the top five promoted destinations surprised O’Brien.
“Perhaps US institutions are beginning to wake up to the opportunities of using agents to promote their programmes,” he noted.
And for the first time INTO surveyed agents on online education revealing that 74% of them do not currently promote online programmes, but 90% said they would consider doing so in future.
Other key findings from the survey show that although university rankings and location are important factors for students, agents prioritise service quality and response time from institutions with 99% of respondents marking those areas “important” or “very important”.
“Anybody who wants to be successful internationally needs to focus on their service standards because that’s what seems most important to agents now,” advised O’Brien.
“Anybody who wants to be successful internationally needs to focus on their service standards because that’s what seems most important to agents now”
The company’s student survey however reveals that the use of education agents has dropped slightly. Of the some 2,000 students from INTO’s September 2013 cohort, 69% said they applied via an education agent compared to 74% last year.
Still 94% of students gave a solid vote of confidence in the quality of service they received from their agent indicating a maturity in the agency sector according to O’Brien.
“For the most part agents provide a very professional, highly ethical, increasingly transparent service,” he said. “Some of these agencies are billion dollar enterprises, like New Oriental in China which trades on the New York Stock Exchange.”
Especially in countries like Hong Kong and Taiwan where students have access to a wealth of resources, O’Brien believes agents thrive as long as students are “cash rich but time poor.”
