An interview with Study Group partner Bright Can Achieve
An interview with Study Group partner Bright Can Achieve
As part of our new blog spotlight series, Hanks Han, Senior Director of Bright Can Achieve in China, shares his views about the impact of COVID-19 on international student recruitment and the future of global higher education. Bright Can Achieve are a Study Group Agent Premier Club Gold winner.
Q1: How do you feel about winning an Agent Premier Club award?
The past year has been challenging for the entire global higher education sector. Against all the odds, Bright Can Achieve was able to guide students through this difficult period by helping them select programmes and start their studies online or abroad in a blended learning format.
We have worked incredibly hard to support students to reach high-quality tertiary education and winning an Agent Premier Club Gold award means a lot to us, especially during the pandemic. We are pleased that our efforts have been recognised by Study Group.
Q2. Could you share what the past year has been like in terms of international student recruitment - highlighting challenges and how you managed to turn things around?
The past year has undoubtedly been tough in terms of international student recruitment. Learners were naturally apprehensive about travelling overseas to begin their studies. Furthermore, they were often confused about the different COVID-19 restrictions in key anglophone higher education study destination countries (i.e., Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the US, the UK and Europe) and whether they could realistically start their studies in-country.
The main reason we were and are still able to support students effectively through this uncertain period of time is by embracing digital technology for effective and personalised communications. By doing this, we were able to engage with students and their parents, to offer them the latest guidance about studying overseas and the courses available and most suitable for them.
Study Group continue to be excellent at providing us with the information students need to make informed choices about which programme to study in the right format for them (i.e., online or hybrid).
Q3. What is your view on the future of education?
Even though online courses have been effective during the pandemic, overwhelmingly, our students would still prefer to study in-country for full cultural immersion and a richer overall student experience. However, they also like the flexibility that online learning provides.
So, our view on the future of education is that universities and colleges will need to evolve course creation and delivery to more flexible, blended models, to meet the changing preferences of international students and to offer a greater degree of personalisation, driving academic attainment.
Q4. What is your view of the partnership with Study Group?
Study Group has a reputation as one of the leading international education pathway providers and we really enjoy and value working with them. One of the great things about Study Group is that it works with a diverse range of high-quality university partners from across the world.As such, we always feel confident that we can find a higher education solution from within Study Group’s portfolio of university partners that will work for our students.
We have partnered with Study Group for over 10 years and our collaboration has been very successful. We hope to grow together with Study Group for many years to come.
As Manoj Shetty, Chief Revenue Officer at Study Group comments:
“We are very proud of our long-term and enduring partnership with Bright Can Achieve. In constant touch with their students, Bright Can Achieve are completely attuned to their needs and can therefore match them to the most appropriate course to support their global higher education ambitions.
“As an organisation focused on championing innovation, we share Bright Can Achieve’s views that the future of education will be more flexible and digital – with the overall student experience paramount.
“We look forward to continuing to work with Bright Can Achieve to make sure that students can get access to the education that will best serve them in the future.”