UBC is looking to countries with a rising middle class for international recruitment.
According to Times Higher Education, UBC is North America’s most international university, and the university’s International Student Initiative (ISI) is the driving force behind that title.
The university’s 2018/19 enrolment report shows that international student enrolment at UBC Vancouver increased by seven per cent over the past year. But the university is still looking to new ‘markets’ for international recruitment, and has noted Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, Africa and the US as strategic recruitment areas.
According to ISI’s interim Executive Director Damara Klaassen, priority areas are outlined every three to five years, with the current ones being in place since 2015.
But changing geopolitical events can shift focus to certain areas, so the regions are deliberately broad and not permanently set.
“[Strategic recruitment is] entirely about looking at: What is our current pool looking like? How can we diversify as much as possible while at the same time making sure that the regions that have been sending us students for many years are well maintained and [we’re] meeting our relationships with those schools?” Klaassen said.
Strategizing recruitment
UBC focuses on three things when looking at a country for recruitment: its education system, its demographics and its economy.
For example, the Philippines recently expanded its education system to include 12 years of teaching, making it more compatible with the Canadian system.
“You don’t want to go and visit a school only to find out nobody is really admissible just because we’re working from two countries' different educational systems,” Klaassen said. “So we need to be aware of that.”
Countries experiencing “a rising middle class” or an increase in the number of students at “school leavers age” also indicate a wider prospective student population. In recent years, India has surpassed China as the fastest growing international student group.
Interestingly, UBC also considers the US a high priority area despite its profile differences from other targeted areas for international recruitment. Due to its close proximity to Canada, UBC is able to visit a lot of high schools down South and American students visit for campus tours more than any other international student group.
“Because [the USA is] such a crowded higher education system, with … 4,000 plus institutions, you do need to go and visit schools and be visible and make them aware that we exist,” Klaassen explained.
Sometimes, recruitment is more complicated.
“In some cases, we can’t travel to a certain countries because there might be unrest so [eRecruitment is] an opportunity for us to stay in contact with students even though we can’t travel there,” Klaassen explained.
Meeting students where they are
After 20 years of ISI canvasing the globe, UBC’s global reputation has grown and more secondary schools are inviting the university for visits.
Fourth-year psychology student Warisa Chawalitanon and fourth-year anthropology student Aridda Koh, who attended school in the Philippines, remember UBC being fairly well-known mainly from a publication that documented where alumni go to for university.
They also remember UBC recruiters visiting their school.
“I just remember the speaker really emphasizing UBC is a top school in Canada and the world … with a lot of nice pictures of Main Mall,” Koh said. “I don’t remember them going into specifics about faculties.”
“After August the weather got super depressing and … no one really talked about that … it was gonna be raining all the time,” she added. “So that was kind of a bummer.”
But while ISI is helping attract more international students, UBC is considering a zero per cent compound annual growth rate for international enrolment between 2019/20 and 2023/24. This is due in part to space and resource shortages.
According to Klaassen, enrolment planning is not a “a simple formula,” leaving room for “unanticipated events.”
“We’re talking about students ambitions,” she said. “They’re young, but they’re well-researched and they really think about what they want to do with their future.”
Share this article
