International House World Organisation plans to become the “industry leader” in student well-being and safety, it has said, after its annual directors’ conference last month.
“One particular area highlighted during the conference was the importance of young peoples’ well-being and safety,” confirmed Alison Sturrock, communications and digital content officer at International House.
“This is an area that IH plans to focus on more in the future with the goal of becoming the industry leader in this area,” she told The PIE News.
“Young learner language education is an area with much demand and potential for growth”
The four day conference in Belfast welcomed a record turnout of 140 delegates from IH schools from over 40 countries, who came to discuss the managerial and leadership aspects of running a school.
In addition to the company’s goal of becoming the most trusted name in language education, Sturrock said that it is looking at different areas for further expansion.
“Many existing IH schools have identified that in particular, young learner language education is an area with much demand and potential for growth,” she said.
The conference also saw ten IH directors abseil down the side of one of the city’s hotels. There was also a charity auction, which raised a total of £30,000 for the Belfast Activity Centre – an organisation working to empower youth in Northern Ireland.
£14,000 of this total was donated by CEO of insurance provider guard.me, Keith Segal.
Director of IH Belfast, Paul McMullan, called it a record breaking event from start to finish.
“Organising the conference has been an amazing experience,” he said. “We wanted to challenge our delegates at every turn and I think we have done that.”
International House World Organisation is a group of 159 private independently-run language schools which span across 52 different countries.
While most of the schools teach English, the institutions across the network combined teach 27 languages.
