The Recruitment Agent in Internationalized Higher Education: Commercial Broker and Cultural Mediator

The internationalization and marketization of higher education has resulted in U.K. universities’ increasing reliance on recruitment agents to boost international student numbers. This places agents and agencies in a position of considerable influence with regard to the educational choices that students make. These institutional and individual relationships have been investigated from a marketing perspective, contributing knowledge about the influence of recruitment agents on student decision making. However, this approach has limitations with regard to understanding the impact of agents on an international student’s subsequent experience in U.K. higher education. The article suggests that theoretical work on mobility, migration, and ethnographies of communication, including the geopolitics of text production, can provide useful lenses for analyzing how agents help international students navigate the journey into and through U.K. higher education. The notion of “cultural mediator” is introduced to analyze the role played by agents alongside that of commercial broker. We argue that future research, shaped by these alternative theoretical perspectives, may help to bridge the apparent gap in understanding between those working in international offices and those involved in teaching in an internationalized university

Open and distance language learning at the Shantou Radio and TV University, China, and the Open University, United Kingdom: a cross‐cultural perspective

Open and distance learning is experiencing rapid growth throughout the world. China in particular is undergoing a massive expansion of its distance EFL programmes. This global phenomenon challenges all those involved in delivering distance learning materials to examine current practice and the assumptions and expectations that underlie it, with particular regard to the factors influencing approaches to learning, not least the extent of the effect of differing cultural backgrounds. The cross‐cultural study which forms the subject of this paper investigates foreign language students in two very different open and distance learning cultures, The Open University, United Kingdom and the Shantou Radio and TV University, China. It seeks to investigate different attitudes to the distance teaching of languages as spelt out in the two groups’ answers to questions relating to beliefs, difficulties and learning strategies

Perceptions of value: assessing the agent/commission model of UK higher education recruitment in Africa

The UK's higher education relationship with Africa has changed in recent years. Past associations of developmental cooperation have been superseded by market-based student recruitment seeking income for UK universities. This paper is about assessing a form of recruitment that helps underpin this new relationship: the agent/commission model. It identifies the nature of this approach to recruitment, and the processes involved. The paper also asks who benefits from the agent/commission model. The research captured a ‘snapshot’ of opinion within a case study UK university, seeking the views of agents themselves and their service users. It was found that all these actors considered the work of agents to be of value. There are certainly flaws in the agent/commission model, and wider societal implications for African states and economies, but it is suggested that agents should be given more credit for the work that they do than is presently reflected in the current literature