What Next for University Pathway Provision?

There’s no hiding from the fact that international recruitment volumes have taken a huge hit in recent times and, as the UK (and indeed the world) plans its emergence from the grip of COVID, it’s worth considering the role that University Pathway Provision can play in the sector’s recovery.

I suspect that all universities are pondering how they can rapidly rebuild their international pipelines and volumes and, for the reasons listed below, I think that pathway provision has a vital role to play in the quest for rapid recovery.

1. A Continuation of Increased Recognition (and Respect).

In recent years the UK higher education sector has become increasingly accepting of the services that pathway providers can offer. I think this dynamic will accelerate post-COVID.

The opinion by some universities that partnering with a pathway provider would somehow damage their reputation, or dilute academic quality, has steadily evaporated over time. Most private pathway providers can point to tracer data proving that graduates of their pathway centres and colleges go on out-perform direct entry international students (in regards to their final grades).

This dynamic is further illustrated by Office for Student (OfS) recognition of private pathway providers. In 2018 Study Group became the first private pathway provider to be accepted onto the OfS Register of Higher Education Providers, meaning that international pathway students could have the same Tier 4 visa rights as international students at a UK university. Others have followed, with most of the “big five” pathway providers listed on the OfS Register.

This will also serve to feed a greater degree of sector-wide respect and, subsequently, result in healthier partnerships between universities and pathway providers.

The word “partnerships” is chosen carefully in this instance, as historically some universities have had a commercial relationship with a pathway provider but have viewed them with a degree of suspicion, or even disdain. This has often resulted in a toxic, “master/servant” relationship between a university their pathway provider, but I see what's left of this dynamic disappearing as the sector emerges from COVID needing to rebuild international channels.

2. An Opportunity to Leverage Scale and Reach.

People who understand international student recruitment will know that it’s driven by business-to-business relationships as much as (if not more than) the business-to-consumer relationship.

Institutions that recruit well internationally almost always have one thing in common, and that’s a desire and ability to service the all-important international agent network very well indeed, and this often requires an international footprint of staff and resources.

Few universities understand the sheer scale and reach that the larger private pathway providers possess. The key players can boast international teams of 120-150 staff, nested within an international network of between 25-30 overseas offices. If a market is worthy of attention there’s a safe bet that Study Group, INTO, Kaplan, Navitas et-al will have an office there, and most universities can only dream of such a network.

As the sector emerges from COVID it’s fair to assume that international travel by university staff is likely to remain lower than pre-COVID levels, at least for a number of years. I think many universities will begin to appreciate more than ever the value of their pathway partnerships, and smart universities will attempt to leverage the vast infrastructure that pathway providers possess in more creative ways.

3. An Economic Boost.

The realised impact of Brexit, as well as COVID, will place a lot of universities in a very difficult position financially, and all universities will be seeking to introduce new channels as well as refining existing ones.

Pathway providers can offer a much-needed boost to a university’s own international recruitment efforts, and perhaps even shoulder some of the resource burden of international recruitment if university teams have been down-sized.

If partnerships are carefully crafted and nurtured a pathway provider can supply a steady, reliable stream of “university-ready” students, and this channel will become increasingly important during the recovery phase that the sector is about to enter.

What Next for Pathway Providers?

As I type this the sector as a whole is experiencing a huge step-change, and pathway providers need to embrace this with the same vim and vigour as universities.

The much overdue and accelerated move to online and blended learning will present an interesting challenge to pathway providers, but will also present great opportunity.

Sydney’s UNSW has recently introduced a suite of online pathway (transition) courses, ultimately designed to provide access to not just UNSW but a network of university’s all over the world.

The Northern Consortium (NCUK) model of delivering pathway programmes via a large network of study centres all around the world, ultimately feeding a network of international universities, also appears to be highly relevant in today's climate.

Both are great examples of how the pathway sector is likely to develop and morph in a post-COVID world. I see a blend of the two (online provision coupled with a network of international study centres) as a utopian solution, as traditional teaching and learning models (and traditional university-to-pathway provider relationships) become less relevant.

It’ll be interesting to see if more pathway providers (and, indeed, universities) adopt online or blended pathways, or if more providers will introduce a global network of study centres that will feed all of their partners, enabling international students to remain at home to at least study the pathway element of their course (or even feed into a wider network of universities).

Whatever happens in the pathway space, as with most of the sector, it's likely to be a period of rapid and exciting change.