Navitas has signed a partnership agreement with the University of Twente in the Netherlands in what is the pathway provider’s first step into continental Europe.
The partnership will see Navitas offer on-campus undergraduate pathway programs to most English-taught bacherlor’s degrees run at Twente. The first cohort of students will start in September 2019.
The partnership was concluded after a selection procedure that also included Twente’s current provider, Study Group.
“It’s important that prospective students from abroad are able to begin their program well prepared”
The programs will cover a wide range of disciplines and both stakeholders highlighted the shared focus on quality education provision.
“For us as a university, it’s important that prospective students from abroad are able to begin their programme well prepared,” Victor van der Chijs, president of the Executive Board of the University of Twente told The PIE News.
“By offering students an extensive programme that’s more or less comparable with a pre-Master’s for a Master’s programme, we ensure that they can participate optimally from day one.”
Navitas University Pathway Division CEO Paul Lovegrove told The PIE that Navitas will work to ensure that the university has a diverse mix of high-achieving international students across all subjects, a key driver for Twente.
Lovegrove told The PIE that expansion into the Netherlands is part of a wider and carefully planned growth strategy.
“We carried out a pretty robust analysis of which countries in Europe are attractive,” he explained.
“This is I think the first big step we have made outside of the UK because it is part of a long-term strategy to expand our European partners but we will do that very carefully.”
Although the UK is still Navitas’ “primary focus,” Lovegrove explained that expanding into Europe is part of his mission to revitalise the portfolio, and mentioned that the UK isn’t experiencing the same levels of growth as it used to in the past.
“It’s an opportunity to grow in markets that are slightly untapped, a bit like the UK was 20 years ago…when there was a certain penetration of international students that was high enough to show that there was value but it wasn’t a saturated market,” he explained.
“And these market have those dynamics. Once that sweet spot is found, it’s a no-brainer then to put the effort and energy to try to create that opportunity.”
