Page 9 - StudyTravel Magazine February 2023 Issue

eduCAtor Q&A Agents on...

industry speAKs WorKIng WItH uS unIS

This issue, rachel lindsey, Director,
International Affairs & Operations at Kiriko Komuro,
languages canada, talks inbound trade missions HeC Hawaii
and sector performance in 2022. education Study
abroad Support Center,
www.hecjapan.com, Japan

“I have been with this agency for
almost 15 years and we only focus
on Hawaii for university/college
level. Before I joined this company
I used to sell worldwide and sent
students to US universities but
mainly through ELS and INTO and
www.languagescanada.ca not direct booking to the university.
info@languagescanada.ca I think more US universities are
open to working with the agents
number of members: 197 than they used to be. But I would
types of members: Public and private english and french also say that some of the universi-
language programmes ties are still conservative to work
with agents and prefer direct mar-
What has languages Canada been up to in the last year? keting/recruitment.”
Membership declined slightly in 2022, owing mostly to consolidations and
some school/EAP program closures due to the pandemic. We delivered
several in-person events in 2022, including three inbound trade missions, Maura leao,
which brought top international recruitment partners from Brazil, Mexico, yazigi travel
and Japan to Canada for B2B workshops and fam tours with our members. yazigitravel.com.
LC’s Annual Conference, which took place in Ottawa in March 2022, featured a br/, brazil
keynote address by The Honourable Sean Fraser, Canada’s Minister of Immi-
gration, Refugees and Citizenship. LC also joined forces with BCCIE to host “US unis are being more sensitive
the Canada-Mexico Partnership Forum as part of BC International Educa- to the needs of recruiting students
tion Week. LC was pleased to participate in several in-person conferences, from Brazil through agents. Little by
including ICEF (Canada, Berlin, and San Diego), EAIE Barcelona, and ST Alphe little, there are more signing agent
UK. LC was honoured to win ST Star School Association. LC has been actively agreements. Agents, who can be
engaged with IRCC to identify a solution to Canada’s visa backlog issue. We trained accordingly by the unis, give
anticipate that the backlog of study permit applications will be cleared by thorough details to parents and
early 2023. We are working on some targeted initiatives to give access to students in their mother tongue.
work for language students (to be announced.) They also help with the processes
of documentation which can be
How did Canada’s elt sector perform in 2022? complicated, help students apply to
Semi-annual survey data (Q1 and Q2 of 2022) projects 110,000 students in more than one university, and fi nd
LC member programs in 2022, representing an increase of over 100 per cent the right course for their academic
from 2021 numbers, but still just 73 per cent of 2019/pre-pandemic student skills. I see a growth of the relation-
numbers (150,000). It is important to note that these are still just projec- ship between unis and agents.”
tions. LC’s 2022 annual survey will be conducted in early 2023.
Read more at: https://studytravel.
Read more at: https://studytravel.network/magazine/issues/827 network/magazine/industry-issues

6 Studytravel MagazIne