It was a record-breaking year for StudyWorld London, a trade workshop organised by association, English UK, with almost 900 delegates from all over the world attending its international student recruitment fair - attended by education agencies and institutions hoping to broker business relationships with them.
Opening the event, Tony Millns, English UK's Chief Executive, said that students increasingly realised that in order to be world-class, they had to have studied somewhere else in the world. He continued: "Despite problems, we're optimistic that this business will continue to grow."
The problems he alluded to are quite significant, however, as the English language teaching business is battling a government that is working hard to reduce migration to the "tens of thousands" and as a result - streamlining the accreditation requirements that all bona fide English language schools have to go through and forcing schools to become reaccredited by an inspection body that has no knowledge or experience of working with the sector.
This follows a
policy decision earlier this year to bar students enrolled at private language colleges from working part-time, although those studying at FE colleges can work for 10 hours per week and those at an HE institution can work for 20 hours.
English language schools had to apply for accreditation by last Friday, September 9, with ISI (Independent Schools Inspectorate) or another similar body, such as QAA. Millns said that ISI (which is appropriate for most private language schools) had been "extremely uncooperative with everything that we have suggested to make their very generic accreditation scheme more suitable for the English language sector". UKBA has undertaken to "talk to ISI to try to persuade them to be more cooperative with us", explained Millns. If this is not successful, then legal action is one recourse being considered.
"We don't believe that they [ISI] fully understand the needs of the sector and we also think their charges are exorbitant, and they are exploiting the monopoly which has accidentally dropped into their lap," slammed Millns - noting that non-refundable application fees stand at £1,250 with accreditation fees ranging from between £8,000-£12,000, "which is a huge cost for small to medium-sized businesses".
Millns said that he believed only one-quarter of his membership would apply for Tier 4 accreditation via ISI, with many other members relying on
Extended Student Visitor Visas (which does not fall under Tier 4 rules) and EU business.
It was a record-breaking year for StudyWorld London, a trade workshop organised by association, English UK, with almost 900 delegates from all over the world attending its international student recruitment fair – attended by education agencies and institutions hoping to broker business relationships with them.
Opening the event, Tony Millns, English UK’s Chief Executive, said that students increasingly realised that in order to be world-class, they had to have studied somewhere else in the world. He continued: “Despite problems, we’re optimistic that this business will continue to grow.”
The problems he alluded to are quite significant, however, as the English language teaching business is battling a government that is working hard to reduce migration to the “tens of thousands” and as a result – streamlining the accreditation requirements that all bona fide English language schools have to go through and forcing schools to become reaccredited by an inspection body that has no knowledge or experience of working with the sector.
This follows a policy decision earlier this year to bar students enrolled at private language colleges from working part-time, although those studying at FE colleges can work for 10 hours per week and those at an HE institution can work for 20 hours.
English language schools had to apply for accreditation by last Friday, September 9, with ISI (Independent Schools Inspectorate) or another similar body, such as QAA. Millns said that ISI (which is appropriate for most private language schools) had been “extremely uncooperative with everything that we have suggested to make their very generic accreditation scheme more suitable for the English language sector”. UKBA has undertaken to “talk to ISI to try to persuade them to be more cooperative with us”, explained Millns. If this is not successful, then legal action is one recourse being considered.
“We don’t believe that they [ISI] fully understand the needs of the sector and we also think their charges are exorbitant, and they are exploiting the monopoly which has accidentally dropped into their lap,” slammed Millns – noting that non-refundable application fees stand at £1,250 with accreditation fees ranging from between £8,000-£12,000, “which is a huge cost for small to medium-sized businesses”.
Millns said that he believed only one-quarter of his membership would apply for Tier 4 accreditation via ISI, with many other members relying on Extended Student Visitor Visas (which does not fall under Tier 4 rules) and EU business.
