At the time Australia’s Strategy for International Education 2021-2030 was launched in 2021, the Federal Minister for Education and Youth, Alan Tudge, issued a call to the education market for “new ideas to help set a course for both the sector’s recovery and its longer-term trajectory”.

He called for greater diversity in the sector to improve learning experiences and increase market resilience to global changes in demand, a targeting of enrolments towards Australia’s future skills needs, and expansion of international education through new models and new markets.

Accompanied by an Australian Government discussion paper, stakeholders in international education have been encouraged to help steer the future of the sector, to create a collective vision for the next decade and beyond, as we continue to emerge from the Covid-19 induced crisis.

What is the future of the international student lifecycle?

ReadyTech is a provider of Student Management Systems to the international education market, including through flagship platform JR Plus. This is a Student Management System endorsed by NEAS under its Quality Assurance Framework for use across Pathways, ELICOS and CRICOS markets.

Here are five expected changes in international student lifecycle management worth considering.

1. Student acquisition

International educators will need to revise recruitment assumptions and look at new avenues of opportunity, which will result in student acquisition innovation. With the hope of benefitting from pent-up demand on a macro level, providers will look to jump-start a new wave of growth by using the technologies and capabilities available across the student recruitment function, as well as using their relationships on the ground and the marketing and price levers they have at their disposal.

2. Learning and delivery

The rise of online and blended learning will change how educators deliver learning journeys and create a renaissance in learning management. Following the widespread exploration of online learning technologies that occurred in 2020 - from basic online recorded lectures through to advanced, interactive online classrooms – educators will move forward with integrating quality, engaging online and blended learning in ways that combine pedagogy with technology.

3. Employability and employment

Employability and pathways into work will gain a greater focus for students and their educators in a global environment that demands work ready skills. With a rise in consciousness around employability and job outcomes - or the move from the ability to ‘know’ towards the ability to ‘do’ - international education providers will continue to level up their employability credentials through additional courses and work opportunities, integrating it more deeply into their student lifecycle.

4. Mental health and wellbeing

Educators will move to better support the mental health and wellbeing of their international students, making it a core focus in the future. With a rising awareness of the issue and more demands for educators to help safeguard mental health and wellbeing (accentuated by the Covid-19 experience), best practice support will increasingly become embedded in the fabric of the international student lifecycle, rather than added as a token addendum or afterthought.

5. Lifecycle disruption

The traditional student lifecycle will be disrupted by innovation and new business models into the future, with a greater emphasis placed on how students want to learn. While making a significant financial investment in the future by getting on a plane may suit certain students, educators of the future will ask how students want to learn, where they want to learn, through what mediums and for what price, while maintaining the quality of their Australian-branded offerings.

Are you ready for the future of international student lifecycle management?

In The Transformation of International Student Lifecycle Management: Managing International Student Learning Journeys in an Age of Change, ReadyTech takes a deeper dive into these five lifecycle considerations, as well as the role that can be played by an education technology provider.

Our belief is the international education sector, supported by the technology being made available by a bourgeoning EdTech universe, will have a significant role to play in both Australian economic success and the lives of international and domestic students into the future.

To download our whitepaper, The future of international student lifecycle, click here.

To find out more about our flagship student management system, JR Plus, click here.