Bright Ideas
How many light bulb moments can you have before you blow a fuse? Sitting alone in a darkened room certainly isn’t an option if your office is anything like mine: glazed on two sides and on view to everyone who chooses to look up from the atrium entrance to our new Watford campus. So instead, please allow me to retrace my steps – and thinking – over the past few weeks. The transparency afforded by my office is all to the good and airing my thoughts here can only be beneficial too.
In December a piece in the TES reported in determined fashion of a survey by corporate lawyers Eversheds stating that 90 per cent of colleges believe increased collaboration with partner colleges internationally is likely and logical – and that a third are weighing up the benefits of setting up campuses overseas.
Come the new year and by chance a survey of just this sort of international education passes my desk. More circumspect, it warns of the need to work in reverse from the main objective. If your aim is to grow college income by X amount, in say five years, then appreciate from the start that you need to spend big (in FE terms) and have the nerve to stick it out if you want to recoup your investment.
And before anything else, there’s the small matter of identifying the most appropriate region or country on which to focus.
I simplify but the point is well made. Especially when the marketplace for university education internationally is so crowded, with the provision of UK education for foreign students here and overseas a well worn default setting. And guess what, plenty of these institutions are getting it wrong, apparently. For once it’s a case of a new website – no matter how whizzy – being inadequate without significant business planning. On literally a global scale.
Reassured by this straight talking I invited the team behind the survey to come in and tell me more. Having been described by others as a bunch of serial entrepreneurs, I couldn’t resist asking them about serious business planning – the type of new savvy that FE colleges need to succeed if they’re serious about diverging so far from existing mainstream activities (no matter how complex these may be in their own right).
One suggestion offered in reply really struck me as significant. “Never forget: markets are made – not tapped into”. They also reiterated a point we’ve long believed in here at West Herts College: “Know what you’re about and let this guide you – especially at times of uncertainty.”
Let’s take these two in reverse order.
What are our values as an outstanding teaching and learning college? Or is that self evident? If we’re committed to the communities we serve, then at this time of need we must be all about developing real skills for real jobs. Teachers are our precious resource and collectively as a college we need to give our students not only the qualifications but the networks and wherewithal to find work and impress from day one.
What of our own savvy here at West Herts College? Well let’s add “making markets” to our portfolio of values, for a start. This makes sense, especially as we seek out new opportunities beyond drawing on – dare I say, tapping into – public funding. Beneath this we must stick to our enduring values of twinning access to education with our own organisational success.
But rather than simply understanding our communities, let’s find brand new opportunities for them.
Where does all this leave the case for international education here at West Herts College? Nothing’s ruled out. But quick fixes: no. Especially ones far removed from our core business. For every big bold step without planning – without market making – I suggest there’s the danger of sleepwalking away from what matters most. Only to wake up disorientated. A bit like jet lag after a long haul flight.
