The scrutiny is coming from more than one direction. Admissions offices are tightening their own checks on the authenticity and consistency of English-language evidence, in response to well-documented fraud vulnerabilities and inconsistent evidence standards across the sector.

At the same time, UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI) now runs an annual Basic Compliance Assessment (BCA) for every institution holding a student sponsor licence, scoring them on visa refusal rates, enrolment rates, and course completion rates. Falling short on any one of those metrics can strip an institution of the right to self-assess a student’s English ability altogether, forcing a shift to mandatory secure testing across the board. Further, a new Agent Quality Framework is being extended so institutions can no longer treat agent-sourced evidence as somebody else’s responsibility. In short: the English-language evidence an agent helps assemble now feeds directly into a compliance metric that determines whether an institution can keep recruiting internationally at all.

That’s the backdrop and it’s also the opportunity. Agents who understand this chain of evidence, and can speak to it confidently, become more valuable partners to the institutions they work with, and better advisers to the students who trust them.

Academic readiness is the cornerstone of student success

Academic readiness is the strongest predictor of first-year performance, progression, retention, and completion. When students arrive without sufficient English proficiency, the impact is immediate: difficulty engaging in seminars and group work, falling behind in reading-intensive modules, rising stress, and a higher likelihood of assessment failure or withdrawal.

Meeting a minimum entry requirement isn’t the same as being ready to perform at it. A student who scrapes the headline overall score with a weak reading or writing subscore is often the one who struggles most in postgraduate, research-intensive programmes, where extended reading and academic writing carry most of the assessment weight.

In practice, that means: looking with the student beyond the single overall band to the subscore breakdown; recommending a margin above the minimum particularly in speaking and writing wherever a programme is writing- or seminar-heavy; and encouraging an early retake where subscores are borderline, rather than waiting until an offer is at risk. Agents who steer students toward the cheapest or fastest route to a passing score to obtain a visa rather than genuine readiness, aren’t doing anyone any favours: those are the students most likely to need extra support, delay progression, or withdraw outcomes now visible to institutions through the BCA’s own completion-rate metric.

The growing scrutiny of MOI

Medium of Instruction (MOI) evidence is under sustained scrutiny, and institutions increasingly treat it as a case-by-case judgement rather than a standard alternative to testing. Practice varies widely: some institutions require MOI letters to be corroborated by transcripts, curriculum details, or interview; others have withdrawn MOI acceptance for certain markets or programmes altogether, following BCA findings that linked MOI-based admissions to weaker completion or higher visa refusal rates.

For agents, that means treating an MOI recommendation as a considered call each time, not a default and being able to talk a student through the reasoning.

Three questions are worth working through together: First, does the receiving institution’s current policy actually support MOI for this student’s country, subject, and level of study? Policies here shift often, so this is worth checking fresh for each application rather than assumed from a previous case. Second, was the student’s prior study substantively delivered and assessed in English not just described as such on paper in a way that plausibly matches the demands of postgraduate or research-intensive study in the UK? Third, is an MOI-based application more likely to trigger additional verification, delay an offer, or be queried at visa stage for this particular market?

Where any of these three is uncertain, recommending secure testing alongside or instead of MOI is the safer, more defensible choice for the student’s academic readiness, and for the agent’s credibility with the institutions they work with.

Secure testing as a strategic enabler

Secure English language testing is worth repositioning, in conversations with students, as more than an entry hurdle. It supports identity validation, demonstrates genuine academic readiness, reduces institutional exposure, and gives students greater confidence going into study. Viewing testing as an unnecessary cost is short-sighted: the real cost is poor preparation academic, financial, and emotional. Framing testing as an investment in a student’s own success, rather than a bureaucratic step, tends to land better with students and parents alike and it happens to be true.

BCA reviews are raising the bar

The Basic Compliance Assessment is an annual Home Office review of how well a sponsoring institution is managing its international student population against three metrics: visa refusal rates, enrolment rates, and course completion rates. Institutions rated amber or red face restrictions including, in some cases, losing the right to self-assess English-language ability, which pushes their entire cohort toward mandatory secure testing. As English-language evidence sits upstream of all three metrics a student who was never really ready for the course is more likely to be refused a visa, to under-enrol, or to withdraw, institutions are having to demonstrate, more rigorously than before, how that evidence was gathered, verified, and judged sufficient at the point of offer, both to their own compliance teams and to UKVI itself.

Agent-sourced evidence is now squarely inside that chain of justification. As regulatory attention on institutions increases, so does attention on the English-language guidance and evidence that agents provide upstream of the admissions decision. Weak guidance creates a vulnerability that traces all the way back to an agent’s file; strong guidance protects the student, the institution’s compliance record, and the agent’s own standing with institutional partners.

Defining practice that works for students and agents

A forward-looking standard is emerging, and it rewards informed, student-centred practice, which includes:

• Recommending the right test for the destination and programme, factoring in university acceptance, subject demands, security requirements, and timing
• Where subscores are borderline, especially speaking and writing for postgraduate, research-intensive courses, advising testing to a margin above the stated minimum, and supporting an early retake rather than a late one
• Treating MOI as a case-by-case judgement using the three questions above, not a standard substitute for testing
• Communicating secure testing to students as an investment in their own progression, not a hurdle to clear
• Keeping documentation authentic, consistent, and aligned with each institution’s current expectations, since these shift
• Engaging admissions teams early to confirm current requirements and reduce delays

These aren’t extra burdens layered on top of an agent’s advising role they’re the parts of that role now most visible to institutions, most consequential for students, and most likely to distinguish the agents that institutions want to keep working with.

The role of agents in a changing landscape

Agents are often a student’s first trusted adviser. Their guidance shapes not just admission outcomes but a student’s confidence, performance, and ultimately their success once they arrive. Getting the English-language piece right is one of the clearest, most immediate ways an agent can add value to that relationship and one of the clearest ways to build a track record that institutions notice.

How ELSAA supports the sector

ELSAA is the English Language Standard Advisory Authority [link to https://englishlsa.com]. Our mission is to strengthen standards, improve transparency, and support risk-aware decision-making across the English-language ecosystem. We work with agents and institutions to:

• Interpret emerging regulatory and compliance expectations
• Identify appropriate English-language pathways
• Reduce institutional and agent risk
• Improve student progression and retention
• Build trusted, future-ready recruitment practices

Agents who build this expertise put students at the centre of every decision and in doing so, strengthen their own standing with the institutions they work with. Strong English-language guidance isn’t an extra step; it’s the advantage.

The English Language Standard Advisory Authority (ELSAA) is an independent organisation dedicated to improving transparency, understanding, and informed decision-making in high-stakes English language testing. Through independent test reviews, comparative analysis, training, and advisory services, ELSAA supports universities, professional bodies, employers, and policymakers in evaluating and using English language assessments with confidence.

For additional background, please see:

• “Study highlights gaps between English standards set by test developers and those used by universities and professional bodies“
• “Narrowing bands of compliance: How the UK’s new RAG system will impact international student recruitment“

The post Why sharper English-language guidance is becoming an agent’s sharpest tool for student success appeared first on ºÚÁϹÙÍø Monitor - Market intelligence for international student recruitment.

For students studying through TNE, academic support is often one of the most significant factors shaping their confidence, engagement, and ultimately their success. Yet it is also one of the most complex aspects of international partnership delivery.

I believe that the question is not whether students have access to support. Most partnerships can rightly point to virtual learning environments, online libraries, academic skills resources, and local teaching teams. The more important question is whether students studying thousands of miles away experience the same opportunity to succeed as their peers on the home campus. And that distinction matters.

Academic equivalence does not necessarily require identical experiences, but it should require equivalent opportunities to achieve learning outcomes. As TNE continues to diversify across franchise arrangements, validations, joint programmes, international branch campuses, articulation pathways, and increasingly flexible digital delivery models, ensuring that equivalence becomes both more challenging and more important.

Academic support is more than providing resources

It is tempting to think about academic support as a collection of services: access to journals, study skills workshops, writing centres or library inductions. But in reality, academic support is an ecosystem. Students need access not only to resources, but also to guidance on how to use them effectively. They need timely feedback, opportunities to ask questions, confidence in academic expectations, and clear pathways to seek help when difficulties arise. Many students entering TNE programmes are also navigating unfamiliar approaches to learning. Expectations around independent study, critical thinking, referencing, group work or academic integrity may differ considerably from previous educational experiences. What appears straightforward to academic staff may represent a significant transition for students.

Supporting that transition should not be viewed as remedial work. Rather, it is an essential component of helping students succeed within a different academic culture.

The challenge of delivering consistency across multiple locations

While one of the greatest strengths of TNE is its ability to bring internationally recognised qualifications closer to students, it also creates one of the sector’s greatest operational challenges.

Unlike a single campus, TNE partnerships operate across different educational cultures, regulatory systems, technological infrastructures, languages, and institutional environments. A student studying the same programme in Kuala Lumpur, Cairo, or Tashkent may technically be enrolled on the same degree, but their day-to-day academic experience can look remarkably different.

Some partnerships benefit from sophisticated digital infrastructure, extensive local library collections, and highly experienced academic support teams. Others operate in environments where internet connectivity is less reliable, access to licensed databases may be more limited, or students balance full-time employment alongside their studies. These differences do not necessarily indicate lower quality, but they do require thoughtful adaptation.

Successful partnerships recognise local realities while remaining focused on achieving equivalent academic outcomes.

Technology has transformed access, but not necessarily engagement

Digital technologies have undoubtedly reduced many of the barriers that once separated TNE students from their home institutions. Virtual learning environments, online library collections, recorded lectures, AI-enabled learning tools, digital assessment platforms, and virtual academic advising have significantly expanded access. However, access alone does not guarantee engagement.

Institutions often monitor whether students have been given access to online resources, but far fewer examine how confidently those resources are being used. Students may have thousands of electronic journals available to them while remaining uncertain about where to begin their literature search. Similarly, an extensive online study skills repository has little value if students are unaware it exists or find it difficult to navigate.

Academic support therefore requires active engagement rather than passive availability.

Partnership working makes the difference

Perhaps more than any other aspect of TNE delivery, academic support illustrates why successful partnerships depend upon genuine collaboration rather than contractual compliance alone, as responsibility for supporting students rarely sits neatly with one institution.

Home universities typically retain responsibility for academic standards, while local partners often provide much of the day-to-day teaching and student support. This shared responsibility requires strong communication, mutual trust, and clearly defined expectations. The most successful partnerships I have encountered tend to move beyond simply dividing responsibilities. Instead, they invest in joint approaches to staff development, regular dialogue between academic teams, and shared ownership of the student experience. As a result, academic support becomes something both institutions continuously refine together rather than something either side simply delivers.

Listening to students

One of the most valuable sources of insight is often the students themselves. Student surveys frequently measure overall satisfaction, but they may not always reveal the practical barriers students encounter during their academic journey. Questions such as these can often generate more meaningful conversations:

• Do students know where to seek academic help?
• Are support services available when students actually need them?
• Do students feel comfortable asking questions?
• Are learning resources accessible within local contexts?
• Do students understand what academic success looks like?

Listening to these experiences allows institutions to identify relatively small improvements that can have significant impacts on student confidence and achievement.

Moving beyond compliance

Quality assurance frameworks rightly examine whether institutions provide appropriate academic support. Increasingly, however, universities are recognising that compliance should represent the starting point rather than the destination. As competition within international education intensifies, the quality of the student experience is becoming an increasingly important differentiator.

Students are unlikely to judge their university primarily on the wording of partnership agreements or the sophistication of governance structures. Instead, they will remember whether they felt supported when they struggled with an assignment, whether feedback helped them improve, whether they could easily access learning materials, and whether they felt genuinely connected to their university. Those everyday experiences often shape perceptions of institutional quality far more than the organisational arrangements operating behind the scenes.

Looking ahead

As TNE continues to evolve, academic support will become increasingly important. Artificial intelligence, personalised learning technologies, hybrid delivery models, and expanding global partnerships will all create new opportunities to support students more effectively. At the same time, these developments will require institutions to think carefully about digital inclusion, staff capability, academic integrity, and equitable access across diverse international contexts.

Perhaps the most important question institutions that are serious about TNE and their student experience can ask themselves is not whether overseas students receive the same support as students on the home campus. Instead, they should ask themselves whether they are “giving every student, wherever they study, an equivalent opportunity to succeed?”

The answer is unlikely to be found in a single policy or platform. It will emerge from thoughtful partnership working, continuous dialogue, and a shared commitment to placing students at the centre of international education.

In my next article, I will explore another important dimension of the TNE student experience: language and communication, and how institutions can help students navigate both academic expectations and intercultural learning across increasingly diverse partnership environments.

– Dr Suzanna Tomassi is Executive Director of External Affairs at NCUK, a leading UK pathway provider, and Founder of CoachEd Global, a consultancy specialising in executive coaching and global education advisory.

She is a highly experienced strategic leader and board member with over 20 years’ expertise across UK Government and higher education. Her work focuses on internationalisation, governance, risk oversight, commercial growth, and organisational transformation. Suzanna’s career spans the UK Department for Business and Trade and four major UK universities, where she has shaped national policy, strengthened regulatory and quality frameworks, and led large-scale international expansion initiatives.

An expert in transnational education and global operations, Suzanna has driven multi-country growth strategies, co-authored accreditation guidelines, and facilitated major international investments in UK higher education.

For additional background, please see:

• “Beyond borders: Why student support matters more than ever in transnational education“

The post Academic support and learning resources in TNE: Delivering student success across borders appeared first on ºÚÁϹÙÍø Monitor - Market intelligence for international student recruitment.

I started modestly, with two LinkedIn posts exploring aspects of student support in TNE. What surprised me was not only the level of engagement, but also the quality of the conversations these posts sparked behind the scenes and across the sector. Those discussions made one thing very clear to me: While TNE continues to expand globally, there remains a growing appetite to talk more openly and practically about the student experience within international partnerships.

That interest has inspired me to develop a short mini-series focusing on student support in TNE. At about the same time, ºÚÁϹÙÍø Monitor invited me to create a series of slightly more detailed reflections and articles, so here I am!

TNE as a core pillar of internationalisation

The timing of the series feels particularly relevant. Earlier this year, the UK government published a revised International Education Strategy (IES), reaffirming TNE as a central pillar of the UK’s global education ambitions. TNE is no longer viewed as a complementary activity sitting alongside international student recruitment; rather, it is increasingly recognised as a strategic mechanism for extending educational access, strengthening international partnerships, supporting skills development, and building long-term global influence across different levels and subsectors of education.

For me personally, this evolution has been especially interesting to observe. I was fortunate to be involved in several revisions and iterations of the IES following its original publication in 2019, during my time with the UK Department for Business and Trade. Over the years, it has been fascinating to see how the conversation around TNE has matured, from something often discussed primarily in commercial terms, to a much broader recognition of its role in diplomacy, skills development, capacity building, research collaboration, and student opportunity.

The scale of global international education continues to grow at pace. UNESCO estimates that globally mobile students now number more than 7.3 million worldwide, up from around 2 million in 2000, with demand .

Alongside this mobility growth, TNE itself has expanded dramatically. According to the UK Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA), in 2024/25 there were 669,950 students studying for UK qualifications through TNE programmes overseas, an +8% increase on the previous year and . Given the drop in direct student recruitment, this figure is expected to exceed the number of international students physically studying in the UK at many institutions.

Key markets for UK TNE continue to include China, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore, Egypt, Hong Kong, Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates, and increasingly countries across Sub-Saharan Africa and Central Asia. We are also seeing growing interest and expansion in regions where demographic growth, skills demand, and pressure on domestic higher education systems are creating significant opportunities for international partnerships.

Competition intensifying

At the same time, competition is becoming far more diverse and sophisticated. While the traditional Big Four destinations (Australia, Canada, the UK, and US) remain highly influential, countries such as Germany, France, the Netherlands, Ireland, the UAE, China, Malaysia, Singapore, and even emerging regional education hubs in Central Asia and the wider Gulf are investing heavily in internationalisation and TNE capacity. In many ways, TNE is becoming one of the defining features of global higher education internationalisation.

Multifaceted potential

Institutions engage in TNE for many different reasons, and while financial sustainability undoubtedly remains important, I like to think that the motivations today are often considerably broader and more strategic.

For universities, TNE can:

• Create a springboard for multilevel strategic engagement in priority markets;
• Extend institutional reach and global visibility;
• Support international research and innovation partnerships;
• Diversify student pipelines and international engagement;
• Strengthen alumni networks in strategic regions;
• Enhance institutional resilience against geopolitical or recruitment volatility;
• Contribute to civic and diplomatic objectives;
• Create opportunities for curriculum innovation, intercultural learning, and employability.

As such, for many institutions, successful TNE partnerships are now viewed as long-term strategic relationships rather than purely recruitment channels.

Equally important are the reasons that host governments, local providers, employers, students, and families choose to engage with TNE.

Host nations increasingly view TNE as an important strategic tool for supporting national development ambitions and expanding access to high-quality higher education opportunities. In many countries, growing youth populations and rising demand for tertiary education are placing significant pressure on domestic education systems. TNE partnerships can help address this challenge by increasing capacity, broadening programme availability and enabling students to access internationally recognised qualifications without necessarily needing to leave their home country.

At the same time, governments often see TNE as a mechanism for supporting national workforce development and skills priorities, particularly in sectors linked to economic transformation, innovation, healthcare, technology, engineering and business. TNE can also help reduce outbound brain drain and the associated economic leakage that occurs when large numbers of students study overseas. By retaining students domestically, countries are often able to keep talent, investment and graduate outcomes within local economies while still benefiting from international expertise and academic collaboration. Beyond student access, many host nations and local institutions value TNE partnerships for the opportunities they create around knowledge exchange, curriculum development, staff training, research collaboration and the strengthening of local higher education capacity. In this sense, well-designed TNE partnerships are increasingly seen not simply as education delivery models, but as long-term contributors to economic development, institutional enhancement and international collaboration.

Local institutional partners may benefit through curriculum enhancement, staff development, quality assurance practices, research collaboration and international reputation. Employers frequently value TNE graduates because they bring internationally benchmarked qualifications alongside local cultural and market understanding. Students and parents may gain access to globally recognised degrees at a significantly lower cost than studying overseas, while avoiding visa, travel and living expenses. At a macro-economic level, well-designed TNE ecosystems can support productivity, innovation, human capital development, and regional competitiveness. In short, the value proposition of TNE is increasingly multi-dimensional.

But what about student supports?

Yet as TNE partnerships continue to grow globally, institutions are increasingly asking an important question: how can we ensure students studying in different locations feel equally supported, connected, and able to succeed? This question sits at the heart of many conversations I have had over recent years.

We have spent considerable time across the sector discussing quality assurance frameworks, regulatory structures, market entry strategies, and partnership models. All of these are relevant. But sometimes, the lived student experience, particularly in distributed or partnership-delivery models, receives less attention than it deserves.

The reality is that students studying through TNE may face very different challenges depending on geography, language, local infrastructure, cultural context, digital access, teaching models, and expectations around support. A student enrolled on the same UK degree in different countries may experience that programme in very different ways. And while many partnerships deliver exceptional student support, others continue to wrestle with questions around consistency, communication, ownership, and integration.

As we pilot this series of articles over the next few editions, I plan to reflect on and explore practical considerations around several areas of student support in TNE, including:

• Academic support and learning resources
• Language and communication
• Well-being and pastoral care
• Administrative clarity
• Student voice and engagement
• Employability and career development
• Partnership working in student support

Rather than to present definitive answers, my aim is to encourage discussion, share observations from across the sector, and highlight examples of thoughtful practice. TNE is now firmly embedded within the future of international higher education. But if partnerships are to remain sustainable, credible, and genuinely student-centred, the student experience must remain central to how we design, manage, and evaluate international provision.

I hope these musings spark further conversation and exchange of practice across the sector. If you are currently working in TNE, or thinking about developing provision, I would .

– Dr Suzanna Tomassi is Executive Director of External Affairs at NCUK, a leading UK pathway provider, and Founder of CoachEd Global, a consultancy specialising in executive coaching and global education advisory.

She is a highly experienced strategic leader and board member with over 20 years’ expertise across UK Government and higher education. Her work focuses on internationalisation, governance, risk oversight, commercial growth, and organisational transformation. Suzanna’s career spans the UK Department for Business and Trade and four major UK universities, where she has shaped national policy, strengthened regulatory and quality frameworks, and led large-scale international expansion initiatives.

An expert in transnational education and global operations, Suzanna has driven multi-country growth strategies, co-authored accreditation guidelines, and facilitated major international investments in UK higher education.

The post Beyond borders: Why student support matters more than ever in transnational education appeared first on ºÚÁϹÙÍø Monitor - Market intelligence for international student recruitment.