Edtech peer-to-peer specialist The Access Platform has opened an office in Sydney, Australia, as it seeks to strengthen its position across the region.
The move comes after TAP’s first foray into the Australasian market in 2019 when it revealed agreements with Australia’s RMIT University and the University of Adelaide, and AUT University in New Zealand.
“Universities are still able to create and continue that personal connection with their prospective students”
With its new premises in Australia, TAP will be able to provide more hands-on support to what has now grown to 25 higher education and university partners across Australia and New Zealand, it said.
“The decision to open an office in Sydney is based on simple principles,” said TAP co-founder and chief strategy officer Nik Higgins.
“Australia and New Zealand now represent the largest base of partners using TAP’s technology outside of the UK. It was only right we mirrored their commitment to us, with a commitment to them.”
TAP’s “rapid” growth in the region is based on “an increasing realisation that peer recruitment as a tool to engage is incredibly powerful and also, in part, due to the effects of Covid-19”, he continued.
Higgins will join the team in Sydney in October, where the company has already hired Tom Dunlop as customer success manager.
The peer-to-peer platform hopes to help give prospective international students an insight into Australian university life – and contribute to continued growth in international students choosing to study in Australia, which has risen 11% since 2017.
“Despite the current climate, universities are still able to create and continue that personal connection with their prospective students and stay in the spotlight,” Dunlop said.
“These are exciting times for TAP. Our commitment to the ANZ market is unwavering and I cannot wait to start working from our Sydney base later this year,” Higgins added.
In 2019, TAP announced a partnership with pathway provider INTO.
