The PIE: You’re working on a pilot scheme to help Korean universities circumvent fraudulent Chinese agents. Can you elaborate on this? 

XE: We have established the “Green Platform” scheme because of the complaints from Korean institutions. They have been working with many Chinese agents, some which are reliable, many not so good. We will work with a number of Korean university partners, putting information about them on our website and creating an online application system.

Chinese students wishing to study in Korea will first come to our site, log onto our system, then make their choice. We will help them to identify a suitable agent and monitor the whole application process. If anything goes wrong we can easily spot it and correct it. We will also ensure all documents, such as proof of certificates and credentials are genuine. In that way both students and universities can feel more comfortable.

The PIE: Would you consider extending this to other countries?

XE: If it proves to be successful we want to use it in other countries. What we would need is a partner in a given country that can pull all of the colleges together as a team to work directly with us. It’s more cost effective this way. But for countries such as Malta that have a small number of higher education institutions it would be simple to begin working with them.

“Career counselling will be our next concern”

The PIE: BOSSA is working to help students find work in China after studying abroad. Can you tell us about this?

XE: (A growing number of Chinese are returning after studying abroad but struggling to enter an evermore competitive job market) Career counselling will be our next concern, in order to help parents make a reasonable decision for their children. We also want to develop a good system to help students get internships while they are studying overseas, not after they’ve finished, to help them come back for short-term training during holidays so they can get to know the Chinese job market.

The PIE: What is BOSSA doing to increase student traffic with other Asian countries?

We have established a close partner relationship with Korea’s National Institute for International Education and the Singaporean Department of tourism. We are also talking about mutual recognition of membership with Korea Overseas Study Association (KOSA) and Japan Association of Overseas Study (JAOS) so we can work together to promote our programmes.

“More and more are going abroad at an earlier age… that is going to be a big trend”

The PIE: What trends do you see in the Chinese market in 2012/13?

I think the countries of destination will remain the same, the profile of students may change though. In the past the majority going abroad were graduates. Now more and more are going abroad at an earlier age, for middle or high school, or even elementary school. So that is going to be a big trend.