News: College strengthens its international presence with influential China visit
A recent visit to China by our international delegate has been a huge success in strengthening our College awareness to potential overseas students.
Shaf Hussain, our Head of International and Projects, was one of only three people selected as a guest speaker to represent the UK FE Sector at the British Council Agent Training Workshops in four cities in China.
The workshops, run by the British Council - which is the UK’s international organisation for cultural relations and educational opportunities, were set up between the 4th and 11th December to promote and represent the UK FE college sector to students and parents in the country via education agent consultants (independent consultants responsible for representing and helping with their educational planning).
Leading and presenting the British Council workshops, Shaf had the fantastic opportunity to promote our international provision to a large number of consultants around China – 180 attended the event in Beijing, 160 in Shanghai, 100 in Guangzhou and 80 in Chengdu.
Speaking of the visit, Mr Hussain, who has attended many global exhibitions around the world to promote the benefits of studying at Nottingham College said:
“It was a fantastic opportunity for me to attend these inspiring workshops on behalf of the College and to try to drive international student numbers for 2018 and beyond. The purpose of me attending was to try to positively impact on the international student market and I’m happy to say that I feel that I was able to achieve this.
“It was good timing for the College to attend such an event where we could promote ourselves as a reputable FE provider, highlight our new Nottingham College brand following our recent merger and just simply get our name out there.”
As well as promoting the UK FE sector, Mr Hussain was able to highlight the benefits of studying at Nottingham College and Nottingham City as a whole to the consultants - with a view to positively impacting on the market and driving up our student numbers for September 2018.
Education consultants representing students and their parents in China were able to ask a variety of questions and put their views forward through the event panel sessions.
Nottingham College, which is accredited by the British Council for the teaching of English Language, has contacts around the world and has a successful track record - with 32 years’ experience delivering education to international students, of which many progress onto the top 20 Universities. It is hoped that visits to countries like China will further raise the profile and appeal of the College.
Speaking of his positive experience, Shaf Hussain, who has worked at the College for 22 years said:
“Overall this opportunity has been great in promoting the FE Public Sector Colleges in the UK to a large number of Chinese agents. It highlighted the strength, experience and provision of UK FE Sector and a strong message went out to agents highlighting that FE is the best place to prepare international student for UK University Study.
“I was also able to explain to the education agents how the College can support Chinese students, that included informing them of the variety of the high value College courses offered, which have proven to enable students to progress to top Universities.”
We offer a range of Level 3 Foundation/Access to Higher Education courses at Nottingham College, which are specially geared towards international students. There’s currently seven different programs which have proven to be very appealing to students in China, which are Business, Architecture, Management and Economics, Engineering, Accounting, Science and Medicine (due to come in in September 2019), as well as A-Level Programmes.
In addition, we have a wide range of other Level 3 and HE courses available to international students alongside UK students. The international provision is based at High Pavement Campus on Chaucer Street in Nottingham City Centre.
Published on:
- 18th January 2018 (12:00 AM)
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