Summer Seminar provides an essential platform for the growth of BC’s International Education sector. BCCIE’s annual conference brings together over 400 participants from our province, across Canada and beyond our borders. The conference attracts senior leaders, researchers, practitioners, student service providers, administrators, government, NGOs, and students to explore these ideas with the aim of strengthening our work and taking steps towards advancing outstanding leadership in the fields that comprise International Education in BC.
While the future is difficult to predict with any degree of certainty, forecasting mechanisms continue to be popular in the international education sector. Retaining confidence in your chosen measurement and conviction of your hypothesis is the greatest challenge as unexpected factors which fall outside the parameters of your defined criteria can undo the robustness of forecasting models. Economic and demographic data provide the best foundation upon which to base analysis and how these two drivers merge can oftentimes indicate the direction of international higher education’s future growth. However, as the natural unpredictability of human interaction arises, when mathematics cannot account for all possibilities, models of this kind are revealed to be less than airtight. Further investigation has shown that other factors outside of an increase in population with the capacity to fund overseas education will impact trends that emerge.
In this Thought Leader Dialogue I will talk about an international higher education forecasting model, refined over time, which defines a list of core drivers that will have a profound effect on the direction and growth of international higher education in the future. Although not an exhaustive or complete list, I will discuss several ‘Megatrends’ that have emerged.
Research Director, Education Intelligence, British Council
Elizabeth joined the British Council in 2006 as part of the UK Education Market Intelligence team. Prior to joining the East Asia team she worked for the British Council in Washington DC, USA where she managed the UK - US Higher Education Policy Dialogues and dissemination of multi-lateral... Read More →
