International Education Strategy

The UK government published International Education Strategy (IES): global potential, global growth in March 2019. Led by the Department for Education (DfE) and the Department for International Trade (DIT), it sets a cohesive, cross-government approach supporting global activities for the education sector.

It also set out two targets to achieve by 2030:

• increase education exports to £35 billion per year

• increase the number of international higher education (HE) students studying in the UK to 600,000 per year

The IES 2021 update: Supporting recovery, driving growth, published in February 2021, re-committed the UK government to achieving the two targets. It made a commitment to work closely with the devolved administrations and the UK education sector to move from recovery to sustainable growth. This update also reported progress in the IES. The 600,000 international students ambition was met for the first time in 2020 to 2021 with 605,130 international students studying in the UK.

A total of 15 action points from the 2019 strategy were closed and an additional 14 new action points were added. These aimed to support the renewal of export growth following disruption caused by the pandemic.

These included:

• setting out the priority countries and regions for the International Education Champion: India, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam and Nigeria

• working with the UK higher education (HE) sector to enhance international student experience from application to employment

• developing a new international teaching qualification, ‘International Qualified Teacher Status’ (iQTS)

• increasing export opportunities for UK chartered professional bodies and UK special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) providers

The 2022 update summarises steps the UK government has taken, and outlines progress against the targets and each outstanding action since February 2021. It includes updates on new initiatives to support export growth and increase the number of HE students studying in the UK.

1. International Education Champion - creating greater cross-departmental work and strengthening a coordinated, UK-wide approach to promoting education exports overseas.

2. Graduate route - allowing international students awarded their degrees to stay and work, or look for work, in the UK.

3. Education exports data - defining the scope of education exports and developing a methodology for improving data source.

4. International Qualified Teacher Status (iQTS) - a new international teaching qualification.

5. Turing Scheme – supporting over 41,000 individual mobilities (almost half of them from disadvantaged backgrounds) to over 150 destinations across the 2021 to 2022 academic year.

6. Free trade agreements (FTAs) - understanding export priorities for countries where the UK government is negotiating FTAs.

7. Sustainability and climate change - setting out the UK’s international ambitions and plans.

8. Improving the student journey - Myriad by UCAS, the new dedicated platform for international postgraduate students, launched in February 2022 to provide a fulfilling academic experience for international students studying in the UK.

9. Support for Ukraine - The Department for Education has made over £4 million of additional funding available to universities to distribute to students from Ukraine.

10. Warm Welcome Scholarship Scheme - meeting the needs of different groups with links to Afghanistan in the UK.

Visit https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/international-education-strategy-2022-update/international-education-strategy-2022-progress-update to learn more.

Up Next For Higher Ed? Cryptocurrencies, Political Battles and Hybrid Learning

What’s on the horizon for higher education?

Experts around the world have identified that social, technological, economic, environmental and political trends are influencing the higher ed sector.

An economic trend that the research identifies as significant is the growth of the digital economy. Colleges will need to respond to increased interest in cryptocurrencies among consumers and to maintain their “digital identities” as well as navigating the fact that each student and employee will be more likely to have their own personal digital identity.

The report also states that the spread of hybrid and online learning was named one of the top social trends. Institutions will need to focus on developing strong teaching practices and technologies to support student learning online or in hybrid courses.

Institutions should also focus on ways to accommodate people who are learning and working remotely; prioritize students health; and upgrade audio and video equipment in campus to effectively teach students, whether they’re learning in a physical classroom or online.

In the realm of political trends, the report notes that the increasing polarization of American society is fast encroaching on higher education. It predicts that, “at those institutions with stated political allegiances, the idyllic vision of a university classroom alive with free thought and open debate will give way to classrooms with constrained discussions and narrow definitions of what counts as legitimate knowledge and truth.”

The report summarized that in order to sustain the financial status of the institution, Institutions will need to be able to better make the case for why the education they offer is worth it.

Visit https://www.edsurge.com/news/2022-04-28-up-next-for-higher-ed-cryptocurrencies-political-battles-and-hybrid-learning to learn more.

How grammar is taught in England should change

The teaching of grammar – the ways that words are combined to make sentences – can be controversial. It often leads to debates about “correct English” and can result in people being judged if their use of language deviates from this “correct” form.

England’s current national curriculum, implemented in 2014, introduced a lot more grammar teaching to primary schools. However, new research led by Scott White and his colleagues with 1,700 primary school children and 70 teachers across 70 schools, has found that the approach to teaching grammar to help writing has not been effective to improve children’s narrative writing. The extensive grammar requirements in the national curriculum, including their link with a particular view of correct English – defined as “standard English”– represents an unacceptably ideological influence on the national curriculum.

Visit https://theconversation.com/how-grammar-is-taught-in-england-should-change-176739 to learn more.