In 2008, we recognised that our services were not fully meeting the needs of our further education college members. In response, we created a new strategy to help us offer a better service to the sector.
You can find out more below about how we are working to achieve this. You can also find out about other support from the British Council to help you with international recruitment, partnership building and skills development, plus we've provided links to external organisations providing support and some useful documents.
If you have any questions, comments or ideas, please contact us.
The Education UK Partnership's further education college strategy was developed in 2009 working closely with our college advisory panel. The strategy aims to
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Promote the benefits of a UK college education to international students |
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Enable UK colleges to recruit international students |
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Help UK colleges to build partnerships with international institutions |
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Help us collaborate with key stakeholders (i.e. UKCISA and AoC) |
One of the key recommendations for the strategy was to help international students and agents better understand the UK college sector and show them the huge benefits it has to offer them. For this, we first needed to capture the real selling points of the UK college sector.
Working with marketing consultancy Renaissance and UK colleges, we have created a set of propositions which - we hope you will agree - describe clearly and persuasively what the UK college sector has to offer to international students.
The propositions were created following research and analysis of
- student’s motivations for studying overseas and their decision-making processes
- different consumer types
- competitive differences versus other countries and education sectors
British Council staff around the world and UK colleges will be able to draw upon these messages in their PR and marketing campaigns to promote the sector to students, parents and agents.
You can  see the propositions here (164KB). We would be really grateful for your feedback, please contact us.
Another key aim of our strategy is to help British Council staff overseas understand the different types of UK college courses and institutions on offer, so that they can better market the sector and advise students on their choices.
Our college sector ambassador's scheme involves college members of the Education UK Partnership who are travelling overseas visiting British Council staff to give them a presentation about the UK college sector.
You can see the presentation here (262KB). If you would like to be an ambassador on one of your trips, please contact the Education UK Partnership team.
College champions are British Council staff in a number of Partnership country offices. Their role is to be the primary source of information and contact for the sector in their country, and to raise the profile of UK colleges.
Champions appointed so far are as follows. Please do not hesitate to contact them:
The advisory panel is made up of volunteers from 19 member colleges:
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Bradford College |
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City College Plymouth |
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City of Sunderland College |
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Derby College |
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Dudley College |
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Hull College |
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John Leggott College |
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Kingston College |
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Loughborough College |
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Llandrillo College |
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Oxford and Cherwell Valley College |
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Stevenson College Edinburgh |
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Swansea College |
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Thanet College |
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Wakefield College |
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Waltham Forest College |
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Wigan & Leigh College |
The panel’s role is to act as a sounding board for developments the Education UK Partnership is making on behalf of the college sector. The panel meets on a termly basis. The minutes from the following meetings are available:
10 March 2009 (149KB) ![[Education UK Partnership password required]](eumd-partnership-password-required.gif)
10 September 2009 (128KB)
10 March 2010 (24KB)
13 October 2010 (39KB)
If you are interested in joining or contacting the panel, please contact Chris Brooks.
This quarterly newsletter aims to keep you up-to-date with our college strategy and developments. It also highlights other international marketing, funding and networking opportunities for colleges. Subscribe to the Partnership FE newsletter or view past editions of the newsletter.
In addition to the Education UK Partnership, the British Council manages a range of other programmes which support UK colleges in international recruitment, skills development and partnership building. Here are some you may find of interest:
See the support for UK education and training providers section of the British Council website for details of other programmes available.
Other organisations supporting colleges’ internationalisation activities include:
If you are aware of any other stakeholder organisations that you have found particularly useful and we could share with other member colleges please contact Chris Brooks.
You may find the following documents useful:
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