Korean universities had a strong turnout, signalling the increased interest in Korea as an education destination as well as a student resource country.

“Asian educators would like to get more students from other regions like North America and Europe, but it’s not easy because of lack of knowledge of the system,” said GJY Corp’s Giljun Yang. “Next year I’d like to get more agents from different countries.”

This year, agencies represented a range of Asian countries in part because of the venue in centrally-located Jeju Island in South Korea.

New online forum QA should enable Asian companies to make new professional links

Yang unveiled a new online network/forum during the event, aiming to connect Asian agents and educators with their Western counterparts. He hopes the QA network will become Asia’s go-to resource for networking and marketing for international education professionals.

“Particularly in Europe there are good systems but there is nothing like that in Asia so to start I would like to get good information to the Asian educators and agencies to share their knowledge,” he told The PIE News.

“And universities in Korea, Japan and China for example might be trying to work with agents from Latin America or other countries but it’s actually too far away, so both of them are hesitant to meet. I’d like to show them some tips.”

Agents can join QA as Full Members while educators, associations and service providers can register as Associate Members. Membership to the network will be free until 31 May, after which a US$90 registration fee will apply.

A two-day workshop followed with 130 educators and agents from 23 countries attending

The K Conference kicked off with presentations from representatives in key markets including Canada, Japan and Ireland. A two-day workshop followed with 130 educators and agents from 23 countries attending.

As Korea continues to be a strong source market for educators, Yang also announced an additional two KC marketing and recruitment workshops in Seoul and the country’s second city, Busan, later this year open for just Korean agents.

The fourth annual Seoul International Education Workshop, which took place last week, has also expanded to include Busan. “There’s a super market in Busan,” organiser Don Kim told The PIE News. “There is a lot of money there but not enough information about the schools.”