Last week Mohamed Arafa from Admission Universities & Institutes Entrance Services, Abu Dhabi, passed the certifying exam, which is increasingly recognised as a mark of agent quality within the international education community.

Stan Bobrov, marketing assistant at ICEF, told The PIE News: “Presently there are over 3,000 people registered for the course and a large number of test-requests in the pipeline.

“We would like to have ICEF Trained Agent Counsellors in all possible markets and we strive to add new ITACs and in new countries every day.”

Aimed at agency-based student counsellors, the ICEF Agent Training Course (IATC) offers instruction on the international education market and main student destinations; how to conduct research on countries and their educational systems; and how to deal with students, education institutions and governments.

Bobrov said the test differed from other training programmes by providing practical information “that can be  applied across all markets”, rather than just to an individual market.

“There are over 3,000 people registered for the course and a large number of test-requests in the pipeline”

“We established the ICEF Agent Training Course course to provide student counsellors with a strong fundamental knowledge base, and the practical skills required to work effectively with both their partner institutions and their students,” he said.

Education institutions are increasingly recognising the IATC qualification when choosing agent partners, and some 56 agents have passed the exam this year, with ICEF Trained Agent Counsellors now located in 51 countries. ICEF also said it was actively pursuing partnerships with governments in trusted agent schemes and would have news to release on this in the near future.