Asia

While issues of academic quality remain top priority for students when choosing where to study abroad, safety has become a growing concern, according to new research from the British Council. The report found that safety concerns had risen across all destinations surveyed over the last five years and blamed the media for driving the trend.

A memo from the US State Department forcing Chinese teachers on American campuses to leave by June has been reversed. The directive would have led to the deportation of up to 51 teachers at state-backed Confucius Institutes in the US, and has caused a huge backlash on Chinese media, with one blog reporting 500,000 posts on the issue.

Pearson, one of the world’s biggest education companies, is to pay US$90 million for GlobalEnglish – an online English for business service with significant reach in the developing world. US company GlobalEnglish provides ELT for corporate clients such as HSBC, General Electric and Tata.

English First, one of the world’s largest English language training companies, has launched its Englishtown e-learning programme in Indonesia. Through Englishtown Indonesia, students have immersive conversation classes online with native speaking teachers in groups of four to five.

Fifty per cent of language schools and 41% of educational agencies saw growth in the first quarter of 2012, according to the latest language travel survey from ALTO. France, Malta, Germany and Ireland were particularly upbeat in terms of language teaching destinations.

Pearson this month has opened a third test preparation office in Nigeria in collaboration with Kaplan and partnered with Nepal's ECAN to promote the PTE Academic test through its network and recruitment events.

In a coup for Ireland’s internationalisation efforts, one of the country’s cricketers is to help promote Ireland in India. Kevin O’Brien gained attention in India after the 2011 World Cup in Bangalore...

International branch campuses (IBCs) were the focus of debate at the most recent Global Forum staged by the Observatory on Borderless Higher Education (OBHE). By 2014, 250 IBCs are expected to be in operation - this event in Malaysia focused on the business and ethical considerations required in IBC management.

Delegates from the Israeli Council for Higher Education (CHE) this week announced a new scholarship programme to help more Chinese students study in Israel. The scheme will fund master's and doctoral grants, as well as promote collaboration in research. Israel cited China's shared "tradition of learning".

I believe trust will increase because most weak and bad companies have fallen down already, but problems still happen. That’s why KOSA got together and screened our agencies and advertised to our clients and universities, so I’m sure trust will recover soon.

Indian education ministers toured community colleges in the US and attended the American Association of Community Colleges’ (AACC) annual convention last week, to gain insight on the American community college sector.

US University Tours, which runs fam tours of US universities for prospective international students, has signed agreements with two agencies to promote its latest package. Vietnamese-Russo agency Access American Education (AAE) and India’s Sonya International Education Centre (SIEC) will promote the US firm’s new Open Tours offer in their local markets.

Pearson has announced it will partner with JJL agency in China to promote its secure Pearson PTE Academic test. The company said JJL was the largest and most prestigious student recruitment agent in China, and the partnership will allow its 30,000 clients across 21 centres to have on-demand access to PTE Academic testing.

A discounting war is underway in Korea’s competitive agency market which is threatening to squeeze out medium-size agencies and damage foreign educators’ brands, according to sources in market. Driving the trend, say sources, is an increase in “sub agents” – one or two-man outfits which place students through the large “wholesaler” chains.

After the shooting death of two Chinese students at the University of Southern California (USC) last week, campus officials are mourning the victims and hoping the tragedy won't deter others thinking of studying at the university.