Although many Indian students are keen on a foreign education, they (and their parents) often wonder about the value and usefulness of that education – particularly when they hear rumours of poor job prospects in the countries the students choose to study in.
Beckie Smith, in an article titled How do you measure success in international education? in The PIE News dated 6 March 2015, echoes this thought as follows:
“Two of the most obvious indicators of success in higher education are grades and graduate employment rates. As Lakshmi Iyer, Director and Head of Education at market entry consulting firm Sannam S4 points out, “Someone’s decision to undertake studying abroad is often driven by the idea that it will help them stand apart in the local market and also help them achieve a better standing in their chosen profession”.
Many institutions therefore focus on how well they can prepare students for the world of work.”
Not only to please their students, but also to check the effectiveness and experience of the education they are imparting, foreign colleges and universities usually assess their own strengths in the delivery of their education. To accomplish this, they constantly collect and evaluate data – from student enquiries and applications to student performance during programmes to end-of-programme outcomes in academics and job placements.
Image courtesy http://www.msjc.edu
Fortunately, the matter doesn’t end there. As Ms Smith reports earlier in How do you measure success in international education?:
“In discussions about what constitutes success in international education, one common thread is particularly prominent. Described variously as “a well-rounded experience”, “broadening horizons” and “an opportunity to grow”, it is now widely acknowledged that international education is a multifaceted experience whose success hinges not only on academic achievement but on a student’s personal development and enjoyment of the experience.
This discussion is founded in a consensus that these different facets are interdependent, and that ensuring that students experience life outside the classroom is both a worthy goal in itself and one that can boost student retention and benefit learning.”
This shifts the focus from colleges/universities to the students. Although colleges/universities try to create a friendly and multicultural environment for its international students and welcome them into the local community, sometimes, faced with the challenges of a new environment, international students aren’t quick to adopt to their circumstances. They are slow to build a network of friends and support services.
In her article, Ms Smith sets us up with an example:
“As Kelly Franklin, Director of UNC Charlotte’s English Language Training Institute, notes, it is students who consider their sole purpose of studying abroad to be just that – studying – who are most likely to struggle.
“It seems these are the students who have the most difficulty when they face any challenge, be it a difficult class or a broken fixture in their apartment, simply because they haven’t developed any network of support or empathy,” he remarks.
The importance of building relationships and participation in a student community can therefore hardly be overstated.”
Of course, colleges/universities continue to embrace international students through a variety of engagements such as orientation programmes, student clubs, extra-curricular activities, alumni relations, volunteering opportunities, mentoring initiatives, and more. To colleges and universities, student retention is a key metric in assessing the success of the overall ‘student experience’ for international students.
Read Beckie Smith’s article in detail here.
[Citation: How do you measure success in international education?, Beckie Smith, The PIE News, 6 March 2015.]
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