Education Agents - your reputation in their hands

Most institutions seeking to recruit international students look to education agents to assist them.

The strategy can work very well, particularly when institutions are able to build strong relationships with professional agents.

But there are significant risks too. Reputational risk, and what we'll call "turn over risk" are probably the two biggest concerns.

It only takes one bad agent acting unethically or dishonestly to seriously damage an institution's reputation. A serious incident in a key offshore market could have a very serious impact on future student enrolments.

Turn over risk is the risk that a student recruited to your institution by false or misleading claims will find that the reality is much different from the marketing spin the agent gave them. They may choose to go elsewhere.

In a highly competitive market, institutions must be proactive in managing their agent relationships. The common approach of requesting references at the outset of the relationship is insufficient on its own. Institutions should implement a system of regular agent review in order to protect their reputation in their key foreign markets.

The other important point to note is that for Australian institutions agent monitoring is a legal requirement under Standard 4 of the National Code.

A 2007 paper by Ms Virginia Pattingale of Flinders University explains the risks involved in the relationship with education agents and relates some real life incidents involving rogue agents. It is worth reading if you use agents to recruit students.