The colleges are concentrating on West and North African nations, the place they imagine there’s a sizeable pool of scholars appropriate to check within the UK.
The establishments imagine that the UK has a strong status as a vacation spot, sufficient to draw college students from non-traditional markets in Africa the place English will not be broadly spoken or utilized in faculties.
As such, universities and recruiting companies are concentrating on nations together with Senegal, Ivory Coast and Cameroon, Gabon, Morocco and Algeria as entry factors, partly taking cue from French universities beneath Campus France that in 2023 introduced a change of technique in diversifying their supply markets to Anglophone Africa.
Recruiters say that current developments on scholar mobility present that there have been growing numbers of scholars from Francophone Africa searching for research alternatives in English-speaking research locations, specifically within the US and Canada.
“There has additionally been an increase in English-taught programs in French-speaking nations as coverage modifications and financial forces imply there’s a recognition that the usage of English is a necessity for full participation in at this time’s globalised financial system,” stated Emma Tarrant Tayou, director of the worldwide training firm Graduate Steerage Group (G3).
Whereas the variety of college students from Francophone Africa heading to check within the UK have been low, tertiary establishments such the Worldwide College of Grand Bassam of Ivory Coast are producing English-speaking graduates eager to discover worldwide alternatives, she stated.
“By conversations with native stakeholders, what we’ve recognized is {that a} sheer lack of promotion efforts by UK universities have led to college students pursuing different choices. The dearth of native promotion efforts and native help for college students with an curiosity within the UK led to a perception that the UK admissions and [gaining a] scholar visa are complicated processes,” she instructed The PIE Information at an alumni occasion hosted by her firm in Nairobi, Kenya on 10 September
“We subsequently recognized a chance for UK universities to put money into attracting college students from these nations by way of the organisation of faculties and college visits in addition to open exhibitions,” she added.
A sheer lack of promotion efforts by UK universities have led to college students pursuing different choices
Emma Tarrant Tayou, G3
She stated British embassies have equally been supportive of the efforts, which enhance the availability of Chevening scholarships to college students from Senegal, Ivory Coast and Morocco.
“We’ve additionally invested in employees primarily based in Ivory Coast and in Gabon to offer ongoing help to college students navigating the appliance and visa processes,” Tayou revealed.
Decreased availability of UK government-approved English language and TB assessments imply some college students should journey throughout borders to take the precise assessments, with some travelling for earlier visa appointments and speedier processing to neighbouring nations.
“Ivorian college students, for instance, solely have 4 dates within the month on which to submit visa purposes in Abidjan and subsequently select to journey to Accra to submit,” she noticed.
G3 partnered with a neighborhood English language college in Gabon to open an workplace within the capital Libreville, providing recommendation on English language programs and assessments in addition to on college admissions.
Tayou stated: “By bringing the proposal to college students in these nations, we’re seeing a optimistic response from college students and oldsters alike. We invite universities to affix in visiting these new markets and stimulate the demand additional”.
Whereas African college students present curiosity in finding out in any respect ranges from undergraduate to masters and PhD programs, in Francophone nations sturdy curiosity is registered in undergraduate research – with the center lessons and elite selecting to enrol their youngsters in worldwide faculties providing the British, American, French or IB curricula, she added.
Universities within the UK stay enticing to African college students, regardless of the nation being a comparatively costly vacation spot, because of the standard of training, scholar help and status for getting ready college students to be “vital thinkers”.
For the colleges to stay enticing, they should improve help to college students from new markets, particularly in nations the place the colleges didn’t have any illustration, and the place college students wrestle with “procedural challenges of arriving within the UK and settling in”, Tayou prompt.
The College of Kent was already seeing curiosity from nations together with Morocco, Senegal, Algeria and Cameroon, the place each English and French are spoken, in response to Michael Ijaiyemakinde, a world officer on the college.
The UK is understood for its “training acumen”, he stated, making it simple for universities to draw a variety of scholars from each English and French-speaking areas of Africa. The UK visa utility is a “easy course of”, in comparison with different Massive 4 locations, he believed, which made the vacation spot enticing, he prompt.
“The training supplied within the UK is revered everywhere in the world. For Francophone Africa, we solely have to know easy methods to navigate the market. The one concern for many individuals is the fee, and if we may cost an quantity near what French universities cost, we’d take the market with ease,” he stated.
“The variety of purposes from the Francophone areas of Africa is slowly rising simply the way in which the numbers from the Center East have been rising. I imagine language will not be a barrier huge sufficient for many who wish to research within the UK,” he added.
That is very true, he stated, when it’s thought of that the colleges had been already admitting college students from non-English talking Asian nations equivalent to Thailand, Singapore, South Korea, Cambodia and China amongst others.
The training supplied within the UK is revered everywhere in the world. For Francophone Africa, we solely have to know easy methods to navigate the market
Michael Ijaiyemakinde, College of Kent
The College of Southampton started to enterprise into the French-speaking sphere by beginning to discover the Moroccan market, the place it believes a market already exists, stated Nadia Gabr, worldwide recruitment supervisor for Africa, stated.
As a college that has college students from 135 totally different nationalities, the establishment stays “very inclusive”, and recruiting college students from a wide range of cultural and lingual backgrounds was a part of its technique, she defined.
In the meantime, Cardiff Metropolitan College is concentrating on West African nations of Senegal, Ivory Coast and Cameroon, the place various worldwide bilingual faculties already existed, Deve Omiunu Worldwide Pupil recruitment officer, acknowledged.
The scholars nevertheless wanted to fulfill the worldwide threshold of 6.0 rating in ILETS English competence check alongside different {qualifications} in an effort to achieve admission on the college with the “most employable college students in Wales,” he stated.
The important thing to getting a foothold available in the market lies in no matter methods British universities will undertake, in response to Lorna Morris, regional recruitment supervisor for the College of Warwick, who believes the key lies in offering enough data to potential college students.
