India’s university rise broadens beyond IITs, but internationalisation lags
More than half of India’s ranked universities improved their position in the QS World University Rankings 2027 , with 18 institutions achieving their highest-ever positions as gains increasingly spread beyond the country’s elite Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs). The rankings feature 52 Indian universities, up from just 14 a decade ago, making India the world’s fifth most represented higher education system behind the US, UK, mainland China and Germany. Over the past decade, India’s presence in the rankings has grown by 271% – the fastest proportional increase of any G20 nation. Some 26 Indian universities improved their position this year, nine remained stable, 15 declined and two entered the rankings for the first time. At the top of the table, IIT Delhi climbed to 118th globally, matching the highest position ever achieved by an Indian institution, a record previously set by IIT Bombay in 2025. IIT Bombay ranked 134th, followed by IIT Madras at 170th, IIT Kharagpur at 205th, and IIT Kanpur and IISc Bangalore, which were jointly ranked 221st. University of Delhi remained India’s highest-ranked non-STEM institution at 322nd globally. However, the most significant trend this year was the widening distribution of rankings success beyond the IIT sector. Among the strongest performers were Vellore Institute of Technology, which rose 94 places to 597th globally, Birla Institute of Technology and Science Pilani, which climbed 93 places to 575th, and Shoolini University, which entered India’s top 10 after rising 51 places to 452nd. Chandigarh University climbed 49 places to 526th, while Jamia Millia Islamia advanced more than 75 places to 686th. According to QS, 13 of the 18 institutions reaching all-time high positions this year were non-IIT universities. The number of ranked non-IIT institutions has increased from seven in 2017 to 43 today, while ranked institutions now span 19 states and union territories compared with just nine a decade ago. Education minister Dharmendra Pradhan said the results reflected the impact of reforms introduced under National Education Policy 2020. “India’s strong performance in the latest global university rankings reflects the transformative impact of NEP 2020, with 52 universities across 19 states and union territories now represented and more than half improving their positions,” said Pradhan. “As institutions such as Indian Institute of Technology Delhi achieve record-high rankings, India is emerging as a leading global knowledge hub, driven by research, innovation and the talent of its youth.” The rankings also highlighted areas where Indian universities are increasingly competitive internationally. India now has 11 universities among the world’s top 100 for citations per faculty, a measure of research impact, while six institutions rank among the global top 100 for employer reputation. Bharathiar University, one of two Indian debutants this year, entered directly into the global top 100 for citations per faculty, ranking 75th worldwide on the indicator. Graduate employability emerged as another area of strength. The University of Mumbai climbed 70 places to 25th globally for employment outcomes, one of the most significant single-year improvements recorded in this edition of the rankings, while the University of Delhi ranked 35th globally on the indicator. More than a third of Indian universities improved their employer reputation score, giving India the second-highest net improvement in Asia on the indicator, behind only Taiwan. India’s performance also stood out against a challenging year for several established higher education systems. While 52% of Indian universities improved their ranking, only 35% of UK institutions and 16% of German universities recorded gains. In the United States, just 13% of ranked institutions improved while 66% declined. Mainland China remained the strongest-performing major system, with 72% of ranked institutions improving and 13 universities entering the rankings. Globally, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology retained the top position for a 15th consecutive year, while Stanford University and Imperial College London shared second place. Oxford and Harvard completed the top five. Elsewhere, Australia saw 58% of institutions improve, with UNSW Sydney becoming the country’s highest-ranked university for the first time, while Canada endured a difficult year with 66% of universities declining despite McGill University retaining its position as the country’s top institution. We are seeing improvement across a much broader cross-section of the sector, suggesting that long-term investments and reforms are beginning to translate into measurable outcomes Ashwin Fernandes, QS India Despite the positive results, the rankings also underscored persistent challenges facing Indian higher education. QS identified internationalisation as one of the sector’s weakest areas, with 90% of institutions recording no improvement in international student numbers and only one Indian university ranking among the world’s top 500 for international faculty representation. Academic reputation also remained a challenge. Just 8% of Indian universities improved on the indicator, compared with 28% that declined, suggesting that gains in research output and graduate outcomes are not yet translating into equivalent levels of international recognition. The rankings noted that India continues to host relatively small numbers of international students compared with major destinations such as Australia, Canada and the UK, despite government efforts to expand inbound mobility through initiatives such as Study in India. The challenge was also highlighted in a NITI Aayog report published earlier this year, which estimated India could host 1.1 million international students by 2047 if barriers including limited scholarships, infrastructure constraints and concerns around global perceptions of Indian higher education are addressed. Commenting on the results, Ashwin Fernandes, chair of QS India and vice president for strategic and international engagement at QS, said the breadth of progress was particularly significant. “What makes this edition of the rankings compelling is its breadth. Progress is no longer concentrated among a handful of elite institutions. We are seeing improvement across a much broader cross-section of the sector, suggesting that long-term investments and reforms are beginning to translate into measurable outcomes,” he said. “For years, the story of Indian higher education was one of potential. Increasingly, it is becoming a story of delivery.” The post India’s university rise broadens beyond IITs, but internationalisation lags appeared first on The PIE News .
18 Jun 2026
Acumen acquires EduCorePro to boost AI-driven enrolment transformation
The deal brings EduCorePro’s technology platform, products, and specialist AI team into Acumen’s global admissions and enrolment services division, strengthening the company’s ability to deliver faster, more accurate and more scalable enrolment outcomes for higher education institutions worldwide. As part of the transaction, EduCorePro founder and CEO Bhushan Samant will join Acumen as chief technology officer of its admissions and enrolment services division, where he will lead the integration of AI capabilities into the company’s global operations. Acumen said the combined organisation will integrate EduCorePro’s automation and AI tools with its own human-led admissions expertise to build a next-generation enrolment platform. Acumen said the acquisition comes as institutions are under pressure to improve “compliance, application quality, fraud detection, visa credibility, operational efficiency and conversion performance,” while also managing increasing demand for faster decision-making and improved applicant experience. EduCorePro’s existing platform focuses on AI-powered tools designed to streamline admissions workflows, including document handling, applicant engagement, operational reporting and enrolment intelligence. Acumen said these capabilities will help universities improve application turnaround times, engagement and conversion efficiency. The company also highlighted broader sector challenges driving the need for automation, noting that universities are operating under “growing application volumes and heightened student expectations around speed, responsiveness and user experience.”. “International student recruitment and admissions is entering a period of profound operational change,” said Adrian Mutton, executive chairman, Acumen. Universities are increasingly being challenged to improve compliance oversight, identify and prioritise high-quality applicants more effectively, strengthen fraud detection processes, improve applicant response times and deliver a significantly better student experience — all while operating within tighter financial and operational constraints Adrian Mutton, Acumen “Universities are increasingly being challenged to improve compliance oversight, identify and prioritise high-quality applicants more effectively, strengthen fraud detection processes, improve applicant response times and deliver a significantly better student experience — all while operating within tighter financial and operational constraints.” The combined business will focus on AI-enabled tools including application triaging, fraud detection support, workflow automation, predictive enrolment intelligence and scalable admissions management systems. Commenting on the deal, Samant described Acumen as the “ideal organisation” for EduCorePro to partner with. “Together, we have an opportunity to fundamentally improve how institutions manage recruitment, admissions and enrolment operations through the intelligent and responsible application of AI technologies,” Samant added. The post Acumen acquires EduCorePro to boost AI-driven enrolment transformation appeared first on The PIE News .
17 Jun 2026
“More of the right people”: diplomats walk a tightrope on UK-India student migration
Ben Moller, Britain’s Deputy High Commissioner to India, opened with a positive case for the bilateral relationship at the Cambridge India Business Dialogue late last month. Pointing to UK campus expansions across India and noting that British-educated Indians were statistically more likely to invest in the UK, he framed student mobility as a long-term economic pipeline, a theme echoed by fellow speakers Lord Karan Bilimoria and ICICI Bank CEO Raghav Singhal. But that warmth existed alongside an insistence on separating “legal” from “illegal” migration. The UK processes “a huge number of visas” from India, he said, and while “legal migration is fantastic and promotes growth,” both governments were working closely together on irregular arrivals. He drew an explicit line: “More of the right people and less of the wrong people.” It’s a framing that sits uneasily alongside a 30% fall in UK study visa applications in Q1 2026 and a sector asking which signals to believe. When I questioned him on whether that framing was producing unintended consequences for international students, specifically the political discourse around the Graduate Route visa, his response was measured. “We are trying to find the right balance,” he said, acknowledging a brief dip in visa numbers following the change in government, but arguing the UK was still successfully attracting students. Migration, he added, “is a very important part of the political discourse and rightly so”. It was a careful answer. Whether it was a sufficient one is harder to say. The numbers tell a more turbulent story Figures reported by The PIE News showed Indian students falling from nearly 140,000 in 2022/23 to 111,329 in 2023/24, a decline of over 20%. A partial recovery followed, with a 31% increase in Indian student visa grants in Q1 2025 year-on-year, but a Q4 2025 grant rate of 85% complicate any claim of stability. Germany, Australia, and New Zealand have all recorded rising Indian student interest in the same period. The Graduate Route sits at the centre of this volatility. Its reintroduction in 2021 drove the surge in Indian enrolments that saw Indian students overtake Chinese nationals as the UK’s largest international cohort. The 2025 immigration white paper proposed cutting its duration from two years to 18 months, a change confirmed in March 2026 and effective from January 2027. HEPI has flagged this as a primary concern, noting that post-study work rights are a significant driver of where students choose to study. Indian nationals still received 95,231 sponsored study visas in the year ending December 2025, 23% of the total, and led Graduate Route extensions with 90,153 granted. The pipeline is real. The question is whether policy is working with or against it. India’s High Commissioner to the UK, Periasamy Kumaran, added that overt activism in the field of student immigration advocacy risked producing further backlash, and that the balance would sort itself out as part of a natural cycle, the UK’s need for innovation would inevitably pull Indian students back in. The logic has some basis, but it sets aside the burden students carry in the meantime. A prospective master’s student from Chennai weighing a September 2026 application cannot wait for market equilibrium. She is already factoring in a shorter Graduate Route, higher maintenance fund requirements, rising tuition fees, and a securitised political climate. Diplomacy and the binary problem Moller’s distinction between legal and illegal migration is reasonable as far as it goes. Irregular migration routes, small boat crossings, fraudulent documentation, visa overstays – all of them represent a genuine policy challenge, and governments have a legitimate interest in addressing them. But the language of “right” and “wrong” people carries implications that often leads to conflation in public discourse. The language of “right” and “wrong” people carries implications that often leads to conflation in public discourse Asylum seekers, refugees, and those arriving via refugee family reunion routes made up around 16% of total UK immigration in 2025. Of the 100,625 people who claimed asylum that year, approximately 39% had arrived legally before making a claim. The top nationalities claiming asylum via small boat crossings are predominantly people fleeing documented conflict, whose claims sit squarely within the Refugee Convention. An Eritrean escaping conscription into an authoritarian military who crosses the Channel in a dinghy is, under this framing, a “wrong” kind of arrival. The binary does not accommodate these cases cleanly and immigration systems, by their nature, are full of them. The problem is not that the legal-illegal distinction is wrong. It is that once “right” and “wrong” enter the political discourse, they don’t stay calibrated. They travel into tabloid coverage, into the perceptions of parents and agents in Mumbai and Chennai, and into the enrolment decisions of students who register tone as readily as policy. The 2023 dependant ban illustrates this: aimed at misuse of the student route, it collapsed the dependant-to-student ratio from six per 20 to one per 20 by September 2025, with documented collateral effects on legitimate student enrolment. The wider picture for UK higher education is not comfortable. Postgraduate enrolments are falling; English universities face a proposed £925-per-student levy ; and a sector positioned as both economic export and soft-power instrument of the UK-India relationship is asking which set of signals represents the real policy direction. The UK-India CETA, signed in July 2025 and projected to add £25.5 billion annually to bilateral trade, represents a genuine commitment. So does the expanding network of UK campuses opening across India. The relationship has rarely looked stronger on paper, and there is an appetite on both sides to keep building it. Whether the balance Moller described can be found and what it costs in the meantime for students remains unanswered. The post “More of the right people”: diplomats walk a tightrope on UK-India student migration appeared first on The PIE News .
17 Jun 2026
The Netherlands records first-ever international student drop
During the 2025/26 academic year, there were 129,764 international students enrolled across degree levels at Dutch universities and higher professional education (HBO) – a 0.1% decline of just 133 students on the year before. “Although it is a slight decrease, it certainly indicates a break in the trend,” said Jonatan Weenik, researcher at Nuffic, the Dutch body for internationalisation. The figures, released in Nuffic’s annual report, show a 3.8% decline in new international undergraduate enrolments, while new master’s students were up by 2.9% at universities and 8.4% at HBOs. According to Weenink, the increase in master’s students can partly be attributed to international students already in the country transferring from undergraduate degrees. “If you disregard those transfer students, there is also a decline in the university master’s.” “The fact that enrolment in bachelor’s programs continues to decline likely indicates that the drop in total numbers will continue for some time,” he said. While 2025/26 marks the third consecutive year of declines at the undergraduate level, it is the first time that total students across universities and higher professional education have fallen. Notably, Weenink highlighted a “striking” 28% decrease in new Chinese students, with China falling out of The Netherlands’ top five source countries for the first time since 2006. “A possible explanation for this is the rising position of Chinese universities in international rankings, making students more inclined to study in their own country,” he suggested, noting that Chinese enrolments in other European and Western countries are showing similar trends. Despite remaining the top sending country, the data showed new enrolments from Germany decline by 9% last year, in continuation of a trend seen since 2020. Elsewhere, there was a modest rebound of European students following a three-year decline, as Italy, Romania, Spain and Poland follow Germany to make up The Netherlands’ top five source markets. The fact that enrolment in bachelor’s programs continues to decline likely indicates that the drop in total numbers will continue for some time Jonatan Weenik, Nuffic While overall non-European students decreased by 3.5%, Indian student totals rose by the same amount, with new master’s students from India rising by 16.5%. What’s more, Türkiye overtook India as the second-largest sending country outside the European Economic Area , with both standing closely behind a rapidly shrinking China. Within The Netherlands, the number of international students in the capital decreased for the first time this year by 1.7%. “Amsterdam is, after all, the city with the most international students and has the image of a very international city,” said Weenink. “The decline fits the national picture, but is still striking in that light.” Meanwhile, Eindhoven saw a significant 13.4% increase, largely fuelled by more international students pursuing engineering degrees, something Eindhoven University of Technology is well known for. The 11% rise in international students studying engineering has made it the second-largest field after economics, reflecting universities’ agreement to actively recruit international students only in disciplines facing labour shortages, such as engineering. The data follows several years of federal restrictions on international students in The Netherlands, under the government’s internationalisation in balance bill (WIB) which sought to bring down international enrolments and strengthen the Dutch language in education. Whilst several of the bill’s most controversial measures have been rolled back – including the requirement to formally prove the right of English-taught courses to exist – universities have taken their own measures to reduce international enrolments to sustainable levels. The post The Netherlands records first-ever international student drop appeared first on The PIE News .
17 Jun 2026
Who gets to feel transformed by study abroad?
Study abroad is frequently framed as life-changing. The narratives are familiar: expanded horizons, newfound confidence, personal growth. But for many students, particularly those historically underrepresented in international education, the reality can feel more complicated. Will this be an affirming experience, or an isolating one? Will it create opportunity and connection, or place students in unfamiliar environments without meaningful support? These are the questions that have stayed with me throughout my career in international education and ultimately became the foundation of my doctoral research. These are not new questions. In 1944, Elsa Goveia left her home country of Guyana to study at University College London on scholarship, the beginning a stellar academic career. Similarly, Merze Tate, an early 20th century maverick, undertook her first foreign sojourn to France as a 26-year-old schoolteacher. She went on to become the first African American to earn a graduate degree at Oxford. She was a committed advocate for travel in its earliest academic iterations. Yet, she and Professor Goveia remain largely overlooked figures. Over the past few years, I’ve spent time speaking in depth with Black women from US universities who studied abroad in London. Via a series of interviews, I sought to understand not only what they did while abroad, but how they made sense of those experiences, and were perhaps shaped by them during and after their experiences abroad. What emerged wasn’t a single story, but a unique variety of shifts. Many described a growing sense of confidence. Others spoke about changes in how they navigated relationships, set boundaries, or imagined their futures. For some, study abroad was a gateway to academic clarity; for others, it offered a degree of freedom to think differently about their career paths and personal ambitions. One recurrent theme was the importance of stepping outside familiar contexts and seeing themselves in new ways. That does not diminish very real experiences of microaggressions or exclusion. Those moments existed too, but alongside them were experiences of recognition, possibility, and expansion that felt meaningful and, in some cases, deeply lasting. For prospective students, especially those who don’t always see their experiences reflected in study abroad narratives, these stories matter. They offer a more complete image of the study abroad landscape. This work is also shaped by my own experience as a nomadic student who has lived and learned on three continents. When I studied in London during my undergraduate degree, I didn’t yet have the vocabulary for what I was navigating. Nonetheless, I remember a sense of expansion, altered vision, and returning indelibly changed. That perspective continues to inform how I approach and make sense of this research. At its core, my aim has been simple: to listen carefully and center the voices of the students who generously opted into my study. If study abroad is going to deliver on its promise, it must work for a broader range of students, in practice as well as in theory If study abroad is going to deliver on its promise, it must work for a broader range of students, in practice as well as in theory. This means more emphasis on belonging, examining what support genuinely entails, and how programs are experienced, not just designed. There is a resurgence in interest in these questions across the sector, and I’ve had the chance to share elements of this work in assorted spaces along the way. I am invested in the hope that these insights do not remain static, that they transcend the research to drive valuable programmatic innovation. As I enter the final stages of writing my thesis, that focus abides. These are not niche stories. They lie at the heart of our understanding of what international education is, and what it can become. About the author : Kimberley Aparisio (she/her) is a final-year PhD candidate at the UCL Institute of Education and PASS Director at CEA CAPA London, where she supports the development and delivery of global education programs. She has 20 years of experience in international education, with a career spanning leadership roles at Minerva University, NU London, and IES Abroad London. Kimberley earned her BA in Psychology and Sociology from the University of Pennsylvania and an MA in Education and International Development from the UCL Institute of Education. Her doctoral research examines how study abroad from the US to the UK impacts the identities of Black women in higher education. The post Who gets to feel transformed by study abroad? appeared first on The PIE News .
17 Jun 2026
Beyond equations: The real value of advanced mathematical and physical sciences
In 2025, the United Nations celebrated the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology , marking the next 100 years of progress in quantum mechanics – but the field is already transforming industries today . Quantum technologies are emerging as powerful tools in an unpredictable world, offering new ways to improve manufacturing and make supply chains more resilient. Across the world, governments have long recognised this shift. They are investing in the infrastructure and talent to drive the next phase of quantum computing, from the lab into real-world use. For those looking to be part of that momentum — and to help shape a faster, more efficient future — these are three universities offering some of the most focused graduate programmes in the field today. Brock University Brock University’s graduate programme focuses on students getting involved with research, scholarship, and professional development. Source: Brock University When studying mathematics or physics at Brock University, you’ll gain advanced skills that translate beyond academia into fields like technology, finance, policy, and research. Professors renowned worldwide for their contributions to science at the Faculty of Mathematics and Science will guide you into becoming a published research expert in the world’s most prestigious journals. You can play a leading role in projects where you’re advancing quantum materials by studying the strange behaviour of ultra-cold lithium or developing new materials that could increase the efficiency of batteries and hybrid energy storage devices. For international students seeking hands-on training in advanced experimental, theoretical, and computational techniques of modern materials science, the Master of Science in Material Physics (MSMP) is a great option. Set in one of the beautiful UNESCO Biosphere Regions of Canada, just a 20-minute drive to the iconic Niagara Falls, the MSMP lets you complete the degree in either 16 months or two years, the latter including a major research project within the curriculum. For those whose first language isn’t English, you can complete the Graduate Science Preparation Seminar prior to starting the programme to improve your technical language skills often required of professionals . With this strong foundation, you’ll then be set to make the most of the programme’s advanced industry-standard instrumentation . These include a scanning electron microscope and physical property measurement systems, part of a wide range of industry-grade equipment geared to help you hit the ground running in your future role. Indeed, MSMP graduates have gone on to become materials technologists, data scientists, laboratory technicians, and more at companies like Accenture, Temenos, and L3Harris. “I can confidently say that the diverse and challenging courses of the MSMP programme at Brock University played a pivotal role in preparing me for my current position as a quantitative finance researcher at BCA Research,” graduate Pratik Bhanuse says. “[Specialised physics courses] allowed me to approach problems with a purely quantitative perspective and utilise programming to find innovative solutions.” If you’re freshly entering university, you can build your foundation from the ground up through programmes like the BSc in Physics or the BSc in Mathematics . You have the option to tailor these interdisciplinary degrees to your specific interests through pursuing a concentration, from Quantum Materials to Theoretical Physics to Applied Mathematics. This is where you’ll discover your potential as a researcher. Guiding students as advisors are award-winning faculty, such as Physics Professor Dr. Kirill Samokhin and Mathematics Professor Dr. Stephen Anco, both listed in Stanford University’s 2025 ranking of the 2% of international scientists in physics and mathematics. The University of Texas at Dallas was founded in 1961. Source: The University of Texas at Dallas/Facebook The University of Texas at Dallas Set in one of the fastest-growing metropolitan regions in the US, the School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics (NSM) at the University of Texas Dallas seeks to foster lifelong curiosity and innovation by responding to emerging global challenges. With 33 undergraduate and graduate programmes, as well as 40 research labs within the school, the NSM is where you can bring theory to practice as a doctor, scientist, or mathematician. Graduate programmes at the Department of Physics offer a strong, professional-level foundation in classical mechanics, electrodynamics, quantum mechanics, and statistical mechanics. Students conduct cutting-edge research that gains them international respect, leading them to diverse careers in industry and academia. For those looking to get involved in research in quantum technologies, NSM also hosts the UTD Centre for Quantum Integrated Systems , which seeks to use quantum mechanics in advancing computation, communication, and sensing. If you seek a programme to master the fundamentals and current applications of physics, the Master of Science in Physics will be right up your alley. With courses led by widely cited experts in their fields, the programme spans a minimum of 30 credit hours. Students will pursue four core courses, and later customise their curriculum based on their interests. They have the option to specialise in a specific field, with four unique tracks offered, from condensed matter physics/materials science to atmospheric and space physics. Those entering university as freshman students can pursue either a Bachelor of Science or Bachelor of Arts in Physics to build their fundamental knowledge. Even at this early stage, you can start exploring research opportunities within the Natural Science and Engineering Research Laboratory, a high-tech 192,000-square-foot facility built in partnership with Texas Instruments scientists and engineers. The Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of California, Davis offers two master’s degree routes to choose from. The Department of Source: University of California, Davis/Facebook University of California, Davis Part of the University of California (UC), Davis – ranked #2 among public universities for graduate financial success – the Department of Physics and Astronomy raises graduates who do not hesitate to make a profound impact in the industry. They’ve built new medical devices in the healthcare industry, managed large scientific projects at national laboratories, invested in new small businesses, and more. If you’re seeking that kind of career advancement in the field of quantum science, then you should sign up for the department’s master’s programmes , which spans between four to six quarters. The route you take depends on your specific goals: you can either choose to pursue Plan I, which comprises 32 quarter hours of graduate coursework and a thesis, or Plan II, which requires 36 quarter hours of coursework and an oral comprehensive exam. Courses will cover topics like classical mechanics, electrodynamics, quantum mechanics, and statistical mechanics. They’re led by distinguished experts in their respective fields, giving students the opportunity to work in various multidisciplinary centres and labs, as well as international collaborations. If you’re a soon-to-be undergraduate, the Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Science in Physics programmes will prepare you to tackle more advanced-level courses within the master’s programmes. Physics majors take on a mixture of classical and modern physics courses, alongside six quarters of calculus and other mathematics. This foundation will prepare you for more high-level areas like quantum mechanics and condensed matter physics.
17 Jun 2026
University of Chester: Build a career in cardiac rehab and heart health in 12 months
Henry Nwankwo graduated top of his medical school class in Nigeria – valedictorian with an MBBS and the first student in his university’s history to earn a distinction in internal medicine. He spent years in clinical practice managing patients with cardiometabolic conditions. And still, he felt there was more to understand about cardiovascular health than all he’s seen and done at the bedside. So he made a deliberate decision. He signed up for the MSc Cardiovascular Health and Rehabilitation at the University of Chester – a programme built for healthcare professionals and graduates who want to specialise in cardiac rehabilitation, prevention, and heart health at both an individual and population level. “The programme’s rigour and clinical grounding made it stand out,” Nwankwo says. “And being awarded a Commonwealth Shared Scholarship to pursue it here felt like both a privilege and a responsibility.” Designed for healthcare professionals and graduates, this MSc programme prepares you for multidisciplinary roles in cardiac rehabilitation and prevention. Source: University of Chester A programme built around where the field is heading Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death globally , and the demand for specialists who understand treatment, rehabilitation, prevention, and population-level outcomes is growing fast. This MSc was developed in direct response to that gap. The 12-month programme is aligned with the British Association for Cardiovascular Prevention and Rehabilitation (BACPR) standards and core components, the benchmark for cardiac rehabilitation practice in the UK and a framework recognised internationally. That alignment means when you graduate, you’re entering the field grounded in the same clinical standards employers and health systems worldwide are working to – whether you plan to work in the NHS or take your qualification back home. The curriculum is built around the competencies the field is actively hiring for. You’ll develop deep expertise in cardiac rehabilitation and secondary prevention, sharpen your approach to exercise prescription for cardiovascular conditions, and develop a strong grounding in behaviour change and patient adherence. Each area builds toward the kind of multidisciplinary practice that defines modern cardiac care. That multidisciplinary perspective extends to the people who teach you. The programme is delivered by specialists drawn from across cardiology, physiotherapy, nursing, exercise science, and public health – among others – ensuring the knowledge you graduate with reflects current clinical practice rather than any single specialism. “Studying at Chester has exceeded my expectations,” Nwankwo says. “The teaching is intellectually stimulating, blending exercise science, nutrition, and research methods across disciplines. What truly made the experience exceptional was the consistently supportive and student-focused guidance from my programme leader, lecturers, and tutors.” The MSc programme includes many opportunities for practical laboratory sessions. Source: University of Chester What studying here actually looks like Modules run in intensive three-day teaching blocks combined with supported independent study, giving you the structure of a full postgraduate degree without requiring you to step away from work. For international students, the model also allows for travel home between blocks without disrupting your progress. That flexibility is by design – and it’s part of why the cohort draws such a wide range of professionals, from early-career graduates making their first move into specialisation to practitioners like Nwankwo seeking expertise mid-career. The MSc includes the option to complete a placement in a cardiac rehabilitation unit. This is where you can see how multidisciplinary teams actually put patients first and how the evidence you’ve studied translates into direct patient outcomes. And you’ll get to do this with a diverse cohort of doctors, nurses, physiotherapists, cardiac sonographers, perfusionists, and technicians from across the world. “That mix of professional backgrounds and global perspectives has fundamentally shaped how I think about cardiac health and rehabilitation, revealing dimensions of the field I would never have encountered in a purely medical environment,” he says. That depth carries through to academic work as well. Nwankwo’s dissertation – a systematic review on psychosocial outcomes of cardiac rehabilitation in working-age adults – has sharpened his appreciation for evidence-based practice. A qualification with global reach Studying in the UK means getting exposure to one of the world’s most established healthcare systems. The NHS sets clinical standards for cardiac rehabilitation that are referenced internationally, and the experience you gain here is directly relevant to your future career. A UK postgraduate qualification in this field is recognised worldwide, with clear pathways to employment in hospitals, rehabilitation services, community healthcare, and public health after graduation. Nwankwo is proof of what that combination of academic rigour, clinical grounding, and global perspective can produce. His future plans centre on a career in cardiology – bridging clinical practice with academic work around underserved populations and cardiovascular equity. His advice to any healthcare professional considering the programme at the University of Chester is straightforward. “Come, the investment is worth it,” he says. Learn more about MSc Cardiovascular Health and Rehabilitation. Follow University of Chester on Facebook , Instagram , LinkedIn , YouTube , and TikTok
17 Jun 2026
Ofqual fines Cambridge English £875k over IELTS marking errors
The penalty follows revelations last year that a technical issue in IELTS’s automated marking system resulted in score corrections for thousands of test takers, prompting concerns about the impact on international students, migrants and institutions relying on the high-stakes English language test. In response, IELTS apologised to those affected and accepted responsibility for the errors. According to Ofqual, automated marking failures in the listening and reading components of IELTS went undetected from August 24, 2023, until September 2025, affecting candidates taking computer-delivered tests globally. The regulator said the errors stemmed from weaknesses in Cambridge English’s monitoring and error-detection processes. Ofqual found that 93,865 responses were incorrectly marked among approximately 7.7 million IELTS test instances processed during the affected period. While many of those errors did not alter final outcomes, 62,794 individual learners ultimately received incorrect component or qualification results that later had to be corrected. Of the 21,717 qualification-level corrections made, 20,602 were upward adjustments and 1,115 were downward revisions. Most changes involved a 0.5 band score adjustment, although two candidates received increases of a full band. Ofqual said some of the affected tests were Secure English Language Tests (SELTs), which are used in UK visa and immigration applications. According to IELTS, of the 1,108 affected UK visa-related tests, 279 involved a change in Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) level. The organisation said that four cases ultimately affected visa eligibility, and that all four candidates subsequently met the required standard after resitting the test. Announcing the sanction on June 11, Ofqual executive director for delivery Amanda Swann said candidates had been “let down by systemic failures over a long period”. “Tens of thousands of people took these tests with the expectation of accurate results which influence important decisions,” she said. “We apologise to those affected, and we take responsibility for the error that resulted in some people receiving incorrect results,” an IELTS spokesperson said. We apologise to those affected, and we take responsibility for the error that resulted in some people receiving incorrect results IELTS spokesperson “Once this issue was identified, we acted to rectify it, correcting results and supporting people. We offered refunds or resits to everyone affected. We addressed additional support requests, including for 19 individuals who contacted us regarding potentially missed opportunities. We worked directly with recognising organisations and relevant authorities to help mitigate any harm.” IELTS added that it had conducted “a thorough review” and implemented additional safeguards to prevent a recurrence. “Our focus remains on delivering accurate, trusted and fair assessments for every test taker,” the spokesperson said. The organisation also highlighted the scale of its remediation efforts. According to figures provided by IELTS, 26,246 affected test takers requested and received refunds, while 1,145 candidates opted for a resit. A total of 270 complaints were received, of which 24 were upheld. Nineteen of those complaints related to alleged missed opportunities resulting from the incorrect scores. Ofqual noted that Cambridge English had cooperated with the investigation, accepted responsibility and entered into a voluntary settlement agreement. The regulator said these actions were considered mitigating factors when determining the size of the penalty. The regulator also acknowledged that Cambridge English had spent more than £6m on corrective measures, compensation, customer support and system improvements after discovering the problem in September 2025. The post Ofqual fines Cambridge English £875k over IELTS marking errors appeared first on The PIE News .
17 Jun 2026
How Echidna Approaches Scaling Impact
Perhaps because of recent cuts in foreign aid, perhaps because decades of project-based funding have struggled to move systems, the importance of scaling through government is getting significant attention in the development world. It was the subject of numerous panels at and around Skoll in April, the focus of Kevin Starr’s latest musings for SSIR , and fodder for Spring Impact’s case studies on scaling with government . It’s also long been the ultimate goal of the Scaling Community of Practice , which recently put together a series of case studies on how funders approach scaling impact. Echidna wrote a case study on our work, which we also shared during a recent webinar . Here we offer a (hopefully) digestible synthesis of how we are thinking about funding lasting impact at scale. At Echidna Giving, we realize that delivering the promise of girls’ education requires more and better use of resources by many actors, principally by governments themselves, which are the largest funders of public education. Low-income countries spend about $270 billion a year on education. In contrast, the top private funders of education in low-income countries fund perhaps $2 billion annually at best (less than 1%). Even collectively, top donors can only achieve significant impact if we influence the flow of major funding sources — governments. For that reason, Echidna Giving focuses on government systems. Below, we reflect on the practices we think are critical to success, the new efforts we’ve been experimenting with, and the tensions we face in this work. What We Know Matters 1. Making a long-term commitment Influencing systems does not happen on a 3-year project cycle. Echidna commits to our strategy areas and, often, individual grantees, over 8 to 10 years or more. Private funders are fortunate to take a long-term view, as they do not face election cycles. If foundations do not stick to their strategic priorities over the long haul, they are squandering a critical comparative advantage. 2. Taking a portfolio approach No single organization is likely to have all the capabilities needed to advance system change. Echidna sees the value of building a diverse portfolio of organizations: some doing deep work with communities to understand issues of marginalized populations; others emphasizing system strengthening, etc. This balance allows organizations to do what they do best, learn from and build on each other’s work, and explore multiple pathways to impact. It also allows us to take advantage of opportunities for systems change work, while simultaneously doing field-building work that can help generate windows of opportunity for system change and sustain political will for these efforts. We see field building and systems change work as two tools working on different time scales towards the same objective of scaling impact. ( Here is another simple framework that articulates how these two tools relate to one another.) 3. Funding organizations primed to enable lasting impact at scale When scoping potential grantee partners, we look for organizations that align with our ambitions to influence government systems. We prioritize funding organizations based in and led by leaders from the contexts in which they work, because actors who are proximate to government have the deepest understanding of the system, the most credibility to influence it, and a greater stake in it. A core component of scaling is learning: organizations need to figure out not only what models work, but what can work within government systems at scale, how to incentivize adoption, and so on. Because we want to incentivize scaling, we look for organizations with a learning culture and also incentivize learning through our funding and internal ways of working. For example, we reiterate to grantees and staff that what matters is learning from failure, not avoiding failure altogether. 4. Providing flexible support and building trusting relationships A big part of enabling lasting impact at scale is ensuring deep, sustained ownership and motivation among the folks actually leading the work. Since Echidna Giving is a funder, not a doer, the best way to support ownership and motivation is by funding what doers themselves define as the most important strategies. Trust-based practices enhance our ability to achieve outcomes by giving organizations the flexibility they need to adapt to realities and ownership over results. They are foundational to scaling impact. They also model the type of relationship organizations need when interacting with governments. For this reason, human relationships are as important as the technical pieces of what we fund. We work to create the cultures and mindsets that enable ownership and motivation for sustained change. 5. Hiring a team expert in theme and context, empowered to make decisions We have hired Program Leads who bring expertise in both the education themes they work on and the geographies where our grantees work. This technical and contextual expertise facilitates an understanding of opportunities for scaling. We work to build a culture that empowers Program Leads to be decision-makers, maximizing the expertise they bring. What We Are Experimenting With The five practices above are fairly well institutionalized within Echidna Giving and its principles . There are several other approaches we’ve been experimenting with to see whether and how they help advance our ambition towards lasting impact at scale. First, we have been funding several collaborative efforts that deliberately bring organizations together to work on areas such as measuring life skills and values, advancing supportive childcare policies and regulations, and promoting critical thinking about gender and power among adolescents in schools. These collaboratives have helped organizations tackle big issues collectively, drawing on the unique strengths each brings to the table. They have also taken a lot of time, effort, and intentional resourcing. We’re working to learn where these efforts are bearing fruit and what conditions are required for success. Second, in limited instances, we have directly funded semi-autonomous government agencies. These organizations already operate at scale but often lack the resources to innovate and adapt. We are learning about the unique opportunities and constraints of working directly with these entities. Tensions We Face As we work towards the worthy but difficult goal of lasting impact at scale, three tensions stand out. First is the tension between scale and equity. Echidna’s mission is to support education, particularly for marginalized girls. It is easy for these populations to miss out as programs scale through systems that are not designed to work for marginalized populations. We have productive debates about where we lean in with our grantmaking, given these tensions. Second is the question of how much to take the lead as a funder who seeks to elevate grantees. We default to supporting and amplifying existing efforts and momentum in the space, but given our positionality, sometimes identify gaps no one is filling and/or are asked to fill these gaps ourselves. Third is the challenge that success sometimes does not come in the form of major advances, but in maintaining ground and preventing backsliding in the face of opposing forces. In the full case study , we provide more color on how we have tried to institutionalize these practices within Echidna Giving and on the results of this work in our grantmaking. We remain committed to our principle of iterating and learning around our approach and look forward to further engaging with others in the field on these important issues.
16 Jun 2026
One Nation seeks crackdown on student visa “course-hopping”
Hanson, leader of Australia’s right-wing populist One Nation party, has called for international students to leave Australia before applying for further study visas, arguing the change would prevent abuse of the country’s migration system. In a media release published on June 12, Hanson claimed some international students were exploiting visa, appeals and asylum processes to prolong their stay in Australia. “There’s been an explosion of foreign students abusing the system with ‘course-hopping,’” said Hanson, referring to students who switch providers or courses while remaining in Australia on bridging visas. She also argued that “universities addicted to foreign student money are part of the problem”. Under One Nation’s proposal, students who discontinue their studies would be required to leave Australia before applying for another student visa, with access to bridging visas also restricted for those seeking to remain onshore while reapplying. As a senator in a minor party outside government, Hanson cannot implement policy but uses media releases to advocate for legislative changes and influence migration debate. Hanson, who founded One Nation in 1997 and currently serves as a senator for Queensland, has long advocated lower migration levels and tighter border controls. Her latest intervention comes amid shifting international enrolments and visa integrity measures implemented by the Albanese government. In recent years, federal government reforms have tightened rules on ‘visa hopping’, limiting some onshore visa switching in an effort to strengthen migration system integrity. Federal officials, including assistant minister for international education Julian Hill, have emphasised the need to “manage the size and shape of the onshore international student market” as part of efforts to steer the sector towards greater sustainability. Australia’s international education sector has shown signs of cooling, with data pointing to a decline in international student commencements and particularly sharp falls in enrolments within the ELICOS sector. The post One Nation seeks crackdown on student visa “course-hopping” appeared first on The PIE News .
16 Jun 2026
How a weaker rupee is shaping study abroad
For an Indian student, the dream of studying abroad is rarely just an individual dream. It is a family aspiration. It represents years of planning, saving, sacrifices, and often a significant financial commitment from parents who want to create better opportunities for their children. In 2026, however, this dream is facing a new challenge. The declining value of the Indian rupee has made international education more expensive, creating uncertainty for thousands of students who are preparing to take the next step in their academic journey. A university’s tuition fee may remain unchanged, but the cost of that education in Indian rupee terms can increase significantly due to currency fluctuations. For a family planning an investment of ₹40 to ₹60 lakh (approximately USD$47,000 to USD$71,000) or more, even a small movement in exchange rates can create a financial gap of several lakhs (thousands of dollars). The reasons behind the rupee’s depreciation are complex, driven by global economic factors, a stronger US dollar, inflation pressures, and changing investment patterns. But for students and families, the impact is much simpler: the same dream now costs more. The recent geopolitical uncertainty in West Asia has added further pressure on the rupee. Over the past few months, concerns around the conflict, rising crude oil prices, and global market volatility have contributed to a sharp weakening of the Indian currency against the US dollar. For students planning overseas education, this has created an immediate challenge because many of their expenses, including tuition fees, accommodation, travel, and living costs, are denominated in foreign currencies. A currency movement that may seem small in financial markets can translate into a difference of several lakhs for a student and their family. India at large, has always been a price-sensitive market and international education is no exception. While Indian students value quality education, global exposure, and career opportunities, affordability, for most Indians, remains a key factor in decision-making For most families, funding overseas education is a carefully constructed financial plan. Savings, education loans, scholarships, and part-time work opportunities often come together to make the dream possible. When currency movements disrupt that calculation, families are forced to rethink their choices. While Indian students value quality education, global exposure, and career opportunities, affordability, for most Indians, remains a key factor in decision-making “Over the past few years, the depreciation of the rupee, combined with higher tuition fees and inflation, has significantly increased the overall cost of studying abroad,” says Suneet Singh Kochar, CEO, Fateh Education. “Students and families are now approaching decisions with greater financial scrutiny. Affordability and return on investment have become key considerations, although the aspiration to study abroad remains strong. Students are simply becoming more deliberate and informed in how they pursue it.” One of the biggest impacts we are seeing is students returning to banks to request additional education loans. Families that had calculated their requirements months earlier are finding that the original loan amount may no longer cover tuition fees, accommodation, living expenses, and other costs. The gap created by currency movement has become an unexpected financial burden. The impact is not limited to tuition fees. Accommodation costs, travel expenses, visa fees, and rising inflation in many developed economies have added further pressure on student budgets. “Students are feeling the impact not only through the falling rupee, but also through increasing living costs, higher visa fees, and inflation in advanced economies,” says Jazz John, National UK Head, Edwise International. Period INR per US$1 2021 ₹73 2022 ₹82 2023 ₹83 2024 ₹86 Dec 2025 ₹89 Jan 2026 ₹90 Mar 2026 ₹94 Jun 2026 ₹95 “We are seeing some students look beyond the traditional choices and explore destinations such as Germany, Ireland, and other European countries where affordability can be more favourable.” This shift in student behaviour is becoming increasingly visible. Some students are delaying their plans, while others are exploring alternative destinations, shorter programmes, scholarships, or institutions that offer stronger return on investment. Recently, a student who had secured admission to a postgraduate programme in the UK decided to defer the intake after the family realised that the revised financial requirement was several lakhs higher (several thousand US dollars higher) than originally planned. The student did not abandon the dream of international education, but chose to take more time to strengthen the financial plan. This is an important moment for global universities to understand. Indian students are not moving away from international education. Their aspirations remain strong. However, their decision-making process is becoming more informed, more financially conscious, and more focused on value. Universities that recognise these realities and support students through scholarships, flexible payment options, transparent cost communication, and strong career outcomes will continue to remain attractive to Indian applicants. As I often say: “For an Indian student, the dream of studying abroad is measured not only in grades and ambitions, but also in exchange rates. When currencies move, dreams do not disappear, but the distance to reach them becomes more expensive.” The future of international education will belong to institutions that understand not only where students want to go, but also the financial journey they must undertake to get there. The post How a weaker rupee is shaping study abroad appeared first on The PIE News .
16 Jun 2026
Nigerian agents report extortion over deposits kept by UK unis
Nigerian agents are reportedly being targeted by police or hired security services to retrieve large deposit payments students have paid when applying to study in the UK. Meanwhile, concerns are escalating over the future safety of university representatives in the country, as tensions mount over who is accountable. Several institutions have a policy of keeping tuition fee deposits to prospective students if UKVI decides that they are not a genuine student following a study visa interview. Study visa rejections for Nigeria have soared to 21% in Q1 of 2026, despite the fact students pay their prospective university between £4,000 and £8,000 in upfront tuition fees to prove they are legitimate and financially capable of supporting themselves in the UK. Speaking to one master agent, The PIE News has learned that the situation has become increasingly volatile as families resort to intimidation tactics or police assistance to try to retrieve deposit funds that they believe to have been stolen. “As visas are being refused after a UKVI interview, universities are often refusing to refund the deposit,” explained the agent. “The problem is students are then reporting their university counsellor to the police, believing their agent has kept the money.” “No one would expect a university to [treat] a student in the way they are doing – so naturally the agent gets blamed and is detained until the deposit is paid back,” they added. The situation mirrors an incident in Pakistan where a student with a gun entered an agent’s office to demand the return of a tuition fee deposit. No one would expect a university to scam a student in the way they are doing Anonymous master agent Internet-based scamming is common in Nigeria, with gangs known as the ‘Yahoo Boys’ running extortion practices online. As a result, there is a common assumption that unreturned deposits are part of a similar deception, designed to extort money from families who invest in their children’s education. As a result, aspiring international students are fighting back by hiring local assailants to reverse the extortion and retrieve funds from their agents, regardless of their chosen university’s position. “The aim is to intimidate the agents,” the master agent explained. “As a result, we have had to bail out colleagues who are being arrested or extorted. The situation is getting really dangerous, but our university partners don’t want to know.” The PIE has been investigating the British universities who have collected millions of pounds in tuition fee deposits from students who they deemed to be compliant but were ultimately refused a visa to study in the UK. The financial loss has been compounded by the rising cost of visa application for the UK, as the Home Office generated £9.3m in visa fees from refused applications over the last year. Despite the clear spike in visa rejections, several universities have been unwilling to change their refund policies, with complaints that some are not adequately communicating the risk to students who are applying. Stakeholders worry trust in the UK’s reputation is being eroded by these practices that are leaving both students and agent partners at risk. A director of global recruitment at a UK university spoke to The PIE, saying: “The concern is that as institutions, agents and even students are placed under financial pressure, they can make worse decisions. This is a real threat to the UK’s reputation and relationships in key markets.” The post Nigerian agents report extortion over deposits kept by UK unis appeared first on The PIE News .
16 Jun 2026
Louisiana State University: Research-driven graduate programmes for coastal and environmental scientists
Every year, Louisiana loses a piece of itself to the sea. Land that once anchored communities, sustained fisheries, and buffered cities from storms quietly disappears – and no one in the continental US is losing it faster . For most of the world, that is a headline. At Louisiana State University ‘s (LSU) College of the Coast & Environment (CC&E), it is your research site. Sitting on the Mississippi River in Baton Rouge, just 160 kilometres from the river’s delta, CC&E puts you at the centre of one of the most environmentally significant regions on Earth. The coast here is under pressure from every direction – land loss, pollution, sea level rise, and increasingly severe storms. Most students read about challenges like these in textbooks. At CC&E, you’ll work on them directly, in the field, alongside researchers who have spent their careers trying to solve them. That combination of location and urgency is rare. It makes CC&E a compelling place to study just as much as it is a genuinely powerful place to build a career. Louisiana State University’s College of the Coast & Environment aims to advance research and education to help coastal communities adapt to environmental change. Source: Louisiana State University A small college with a commanding research footprint LSU is a Carnegie R-1 university – the highest tier of research activity in the country – and one of a handful of institutions to hold the triple designation of land-, sea-, and space-grant . Since the 1950s, CC&E scientists have changed how the world understands coastal systems – identifying the causes of deltaic growth and decline, establishing the role of hurricanes in coastal erosion, and building global delta databases that are now the international benchmark for deltaic science. Techniques developed here, including 137Cs dating for wetlands, became standard tools used by researchers worldwide. Today, the college leads projects in AI-powered wildfire prediction, hypoxia forecasting, large-scale ecosystem restoration, and the world’s first model built to identify regions most vulnerable to compound flooding. With over US$14 million in annual research spending, most graduate students are funded through active, sponsored projects – meaning you’ll be contributing to real work from day one. Baton Rouge further strengthens that research environment. The capital city of Louisiana is home to the Water Campus , where scientists, engineers, and policymakers work side by side on water and coastal challenges facing Louisiana and the world. Research here moves quickly from the lab into policy decisions that affect real communities. Louisiana’s coast underpins the culture, economy, and public health of the entire state, and the people here are deeply invested in protecting it. That sense of purpose is built into how CC&E operates – and it’ll give your work a weight that is difficult to find anywhere else. Faculty at Louisiana State University’s College of the Coast & Environment have earned top national and international honours, underscoring global leadership in coastal and environmental research. Source: Louisiana State University Two graduate programmes, one clear path CC&E offers two graduate programmes, both built around funded, hands-on research that will prepare you for a career at the forefront of coastal and environmental science. The Oceanography & Coastal Sciences programme is the only one of its kind in Louisiana, and stands apart from similar programmes nationally for how it connects ocean science with coastal systems. The Environmental Sciences programme takes a wider lens, covering the intersection of ecosystems, human health, and environmental policy. Faculty expertise spans water and air quality, environmental health, toxicology, law and policy, and remote sensing, among other areas. At the master’s level in both programmes, you can choose between a research-focused thesis track and a professional track aimed at careers in areas like regulatory agencies and resource management, where broader knowledge of the field matters more than original research. The PhD is for those going deeper into scientific careers. You’ll work directly with faculty on impactful research, publish peer-reviewed work before you graduate, and build a professional network that carries into your career long after you leave Baton Rouge. A master’s typically takes two years. A PhD takes four. Environmental Sciences also offers a fully online master’s track for working professionals who need a non-thesis route through the degree without stepping away from their careers. In both programmes, getting in starts with a conversation. Most students are admitted to work on a specific funded project , so the most effective first step is to identify CC&E faculty whose research aligns with yours and reach out directly. Once a faculty member confirms a position, you can apply through the LSU Graduate School . The process is straightforward — the key is finding the right fit before you apply. When you’re in the right programme, you can become a leading voice in your field. Graduates work as marine data specialists, research scientists, environmental advisors, university professors, regulatory affairs specialists, and project managers – across government, academia, industry, and nonprofits, in the US and internationally. Learn more about Louisiana State University’s College of the Coast & Environment. Follow Louisiana State University on Facebook , X , Instagram , LinkedIn , TikTok , and YouTube
16 Jun 2026
Brock University Master of Education graduates create impact
When Isabella Favero graduated from Brock University in Canada, she had accomplished a great deal. Contributions to academic papers, participation in research projects, plus many other instances of collaborative work – these years gave her clarity that few other fresh graduates can say they have. “Watching years of hard work, creative ideas, and dedication come to fruition gave me a deep sense of accomplishment and reinforced my passion for research and education,” says the Master of Education (MEd) graduate. Her path is open to anyone with an interest in advancing their knowledge of education. You can choose up to two concentrations from five offered: Administration, Leadership, and Policy; Adult and Postsecondary Education; Curriculum and Pedagogy; Educational Psychology: Teaching, Learning, and Wellness; and Social Justice, Power and Politics in Education. What follows is an experience that’s both flexible and transformative. You can complete your degree online, on campus, or through a mix of both. You can opt for the Course-based Pathway (CBP) or get more hands-on with a Major Research Paper (MRP) or Thesis, though securing spots for research-based pathways is more competitive. Favero chose to go the Thesis route – and has no regrets. “Seeing a research project from start to finish through my research was incredibly fulfilling,” she says. “I am incredibly grateful for the meaningful connections I built with the faculty and peers within the Brock University Faculty of Education .” Located in the heart of the Niagara Peninsula, only an hour from Toronto, Brock’s Faculty of Education is consistently the first choice of aspiring teachers and those already working in the field. Source: Brock University The value of learning, taught by experts Brock’s Faculty of Education sees learning as a force for change. They do this by putting learning at the centre of all they do and seeing learning as a force of positive change that builds civil, progressive societies. They have designed programmes around principles that respect differences, advance social justice, and expand global and community awareness. And they equip students with the skills that can make a maximum impact on their lives and their communities. These are goals that play out in the everyday realities of the faculty. Professor Dolana Mogadime recently gave a talk at a national conference on Black youth experiences in the classroom. The Brock Learning Lab launched a SummerBoost programme to improve literacy and foundational numeracy skills for those who lived their toddler and preschool years during the pandemic. PhD student Muhammad Kiani is looking at how the ethical use of AI can help future teachers build their classroom skills in a “safe to fail” environment. “The diverse backgrounds and experiences of faculty members provided me with unique perspectives and insights that I feel contributed to my learning and values as a future educator and scholar,” says Rachel Di Loreto, who, like Favero, graduated from the MEd programme. If you’re looking to pursue a master’s degree and become part of this movement, the Brock Faculty of Education welcomes you. There are two flexible programmes to advance your skills and impact: the MEd, mentioned earlier, and the newly launched Master of Professional Education (MPEd). They may sound similar, but each serves a different purpose — depending on where you are in your career, and where you want to go next. The Brock Faculty of Education offers graduate micro-programmes where students can pursue three half-credit courses in a concentration or general education stream. Source: Brock University The MEd vs MPEd: Which should you choose? The MEd programme is the perfect choice for students seeking the challenge of academic rigour or looking to conduct research. During Di Loreto’s time here, she got to volunteer and work in various education settings. One of them was at the Brock Learning Lab, which provides individualised support in literacy and numeracy for K-12 learners. “The close community that Brock fosters and the fun events they host afforded me the opportunity to get to know my professors and peers, making my time there enjoyable with memories that will last a lifetime,” she says. What’s more, full-time students in the thesis pathway are eligible for numerous funding opportunities, whether through a scholarship, assistantship, or fellowship. Now, let’s say you’re already an educator working in the field. In that case, the MPEd is a better fit. Offered fully online — the first intake planned for Fall 2027 — the programme is designed specifically for working professionals to improve their practice and solve complex challenges across educational contexts. Spanning two years of full-time study, its asynchronous courses allow you to study anywhere, at any time. The curriculum bridges theory with research and practice, covering three interdisciplinary fields: inclusive education, digital innovation, and leadership. You’ll be learning from the same expert faculty and world-class scholars who lead the faculty’s in-person courses. Want to make a difference? Check out the Brock Faculty of Education here . Follow Brock University on Facebook , X , Instagram , LinkedIn , YouTube , and TikTok .
16 Jun 2026
University of Chester: Preparing tomorrow’s food innovators
The food industry is facing a difficult balancing act. Consumers expect products that are healthier, safer, more sustainable, and affordable — yet rarely want to compromise on taste, quality, or convenience. Meeting those competing demands has transformed food science into one of the sector’s most important disciplines. The MSc Food Science and Innovation at the University of Chester was designed with these challenges in mind. This public university in northwest England, with over 180 years of history in education, is home to a School of Allied and Public Health filled with applied science programmes built around industry demands — and this MSc is one of them. In just 12 months, it will equip you with the scientific knowledge and practical expertise you will need to navigate the complexities of modern food production, from manufacturing and processing to product development and innovation. The MSc Food Science and Innovation is designed with industry experts, delivering a contemporary, industry-led curriculum. Source: University of Chester What you will learn Modules include Functional Foods and Bioactive Ingredients, Packaging Innovations, Food Rheology, Texture and Sensory Science, Food Security and Integrity, and Advances in Food Innovation. Rather than treating these as separate subjects, the curriculum builds a connected picture of how food moves from concept to shelf, and what can go wrong at every stage. Throughout, you will develop practical expertise in food production, sensory evaluation, product formulation, and quality assurance while exploring the challenges facing today’s food manufacturers — food safety regulations, formulation challenges, and the commercial pressure to develop products that are both nutritionally functional and shelf-stable. Learning culminates in an independent dissertation project that will see you tackling a genuine research or development challenge of your own. For 2025 graduate, Paul Abidakun, that meant developing and evaluating an omega-3-enriched plant-based mayonnaise using advanced liposomal delivery techniques. He ran shelf-life evaluations and conducted sensory trials at HTC Health, then analysed samples at Chester’s on-campus food facilities. “This project sharpened my technical skills and deepened my love for research, problem-solving, and evidence-based product development,” he says. Projects like Abidakun’s are supported by the University of Chester’s NoWFOOD Centre — a food manufacturing facility used by both students and industry partners. It includes a 10-booth sensory taste panel suite alongside development kitchens and food analytical laboratories — the same setup you’d find in a food company’s technical department. Here, you will learn so much more than how products are made. You will learn how evidence informs decision-making, design sensory studies, interpret consumer feedback, evaluate product performance, and work with the analytical techniques that underpin modern food development and quality assurance. Learn under experienced academics and practitioners who bring diverse perspectives and use varied teaching methods to meet your individual learning needs. Source: University of Chester Who you will learn from The academic team is a big part of why the programme works. Abidakun credits his lecturers – including Professor Weili Li, , and colleagues like Stewart Crofts and Ashley English – for helping him grow personally and professionally. The impact extends beyond technical knowledge alone. Here, you are encouraged to think critically, challenge assumptions, and approach food innovation from both scientific and commercial perspectives. That balance stood out to Shweta Vishwanath, who also graduated in 2025. “From innovative lectures to insights from pioneering ventures and food industry professionals, the programme gave me a deeper understanding of food innovation and product development, teaching me how to handle creativity with feasibility,” she says. It’s an important distinction. Great ideas alone rarely succeed in the food industry. Products must be scientifically robust, commercially viable, scalable, and aligned with consumer expectations. Throughout the programme, you will learn to navigate these competing priorities and make decisions grounded in evidence. Your learning experience is further enriched by guest lectures from food industry professionals and opportunities to engage with local industry partners. It’s a demanding path, yes, but that is often where the greatest growth happens. “There were moments of self-doubt and days when everything felt overwhelming,” says Vishwanath. “But looking back, I realise it was never just about the degree, it was about growth, resilience, and becoming a stronger version of myself.” Where it could take you The opportunities for food science graduates are broad and growing. Overall employment of food scientists is projected to grow 6% from 2024 to 2034 , faster than the average for all occupations. From food production and product development to quality assurance, food safety management, and research and development, careers span every stage of the food supply chain. Thankfully, for Abidakun, the MSc has helped shape a clear vision for the future. “I am eager to contribute to the food industry through quality assurance, new product development, functional food innovation, and data-driven processing improvements,” he says. “As I look ahead, I am excited to carry everything I’ve learned into the next phase of my career. Learn more about the MSc Food Science and Innovation at the University of Chester . Follow University of Chester on Facebook , Instagram , LinkedIn , YouTube , and TikTok
16 Jun 2026
University of Chester MA TESOL: Teach with confidence
Inspire learners around the world with the University of Chester.
16 Jun 2026
The missing infrastructure for India’s returning global talent
India is now the largest source of international students globally, sending more students to the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada than any other country. The recruitment infrastructure that gets them there is well developed and well funded. The infrastructure that brings them home into a meaningful Indian career is not. A few key data points frame the problem: A large majority of internationally educated Indian students return without a strong local professional network (industry estimates suggest upwards of 70%) Only a minority of returning Indian graduates from markets such as the UK secure graduate-level roles within two years of returning (industry estimates place this in the 20-30% range) There is no dedicated platform built for this segment; students rely primarily on referrals from friends and family Salary benchmarks for returning talent are unclear on both sides, creating consistent mismatches at the offer stage These outcomes are not a reflection of candidate quality or opportunity gaps. They are a reflection of missing infrastructure. Why the timing matters Two trends are converging. India is on track to become the world’s third-largest economy. At the same time, hiring in India’s high-growth sectors is accelerating: entry-level hiring in India rose 168% between 2023 and 2025, driven by AI-led roles, expanding opportunities beyond the metros and a growing reliance on internships as a hiring pipeline (LinkedIn, 2026) . The competition for that talent is now structural, 74% of recruiters in India report difficulty finding qualified candidates, and India Inc. is projecting average salary increases of 9.1% in 2026, with manufacturing and financial services leading the climb. The demand and the supply exist. The layer connecting them does not The scale of buildout is visible at the top of the market: Deloitte alone is hiring 50,000+ more people in India in 2026, with the country now anchoring nearly a third of its global workforce. Globally educated Indian candidates with strong communication skills, independent thinking and cross-cultural exposure are precisely the profile that GCCs, export-first startups, and scaling consumer brands are looking for. The demand and the supply exist. The layer connecting them does not. The structural gaps To understand what is missing, it is useful to break the problem into its component parts. No industry connection. There is no structured channel through which returning students can access Indian employers directly. This is in contrast to domestic graduates, who benefit from campus placement systems, alumni networks built in-country, and proximity to hiring hubs. Missing India readiness. Global academic experience does not automatically translate into familiarity with the Indian job market, its norms, its salary bands, its hiring processes, or the specific expectations of a high-growth startup or GCC environment. This translation layer is currently absent. Salary expectation mismatch. Without benchmarking data, returning candidates routinely price themselves incorrectly. This introduces friction early in the hiring process and reduces conversion on both sides. The combined effect of these three gaps is that a high-potential talent pool remains significantly underutilised, even as employers in relevant sectors report active hiring needs. The market opportunity The jobs-side market in India provides context for the scale of the opportunity. Total addressable market: an estimated 3.5-4.2 million white-collar job openings annually, with early-talent roles accounting for an estimated 1.6-1.9 million of these Serviceable market for globally educated talent: an estimated 15,000-25,000 relevant openings across 5,000-8,000 target companies Key absorbing sectors: India now hosts 1,700+ Global Capability Centers, 1,500+ funded startups (Series A-D), and 500+ D2C and CPG brands India’s GCC count is projected to grow to 2,400 by 2030, representing a sustained and growing demand for candidates with international exposure Hiring in these segments is now characterised as “disciplined and productivity-led,” which shifts the emphasis from volume to fit: a dynamic that favours curated, pre-screened talent over generic applications. What an effective solution requires A job board alone does not resolve the structural gaps described above. Standard job platforms convert applications at approximately 5%. The reasons are well understood: low intent on both sides, poor matching, and no pre-screening. What this segment requires is a managed, end-to-end solution with three distinct components. Upskilling and India readiness. Candidates need structured preparation: industry immersions, AI-enabled interview preparation, and psychometric assessments that identify the right industry and culture fit before applications are made. Access to the right employers. This means curated, high-intent job mandates: roles with a genuine urgency to hire, not listings posted for visibility. The focus should be on roles that need to be filled within 30 days, from companies actively seeking globally educated profiles. AI-driven matchmaking. Matching at scale requires more than keyword filtering. Fit mapping across skills, salary bands, culture, and role type, combined with pre-screened candidate profiles, is what drives conversion. The role of universities Universities abroad are increasingly aware that their career support infrastructure was built for domestic labour markets. For their Indian student cohorts, the proposition breaks down at the point of return. Individual universities cannot solve this independently; the employer relationships, the India market knowledge, and the candidate volume required to make the system work are not assets any single institution can build efficiently. What is needed is an industry-level solution that operates across university partnerships, aggregates employer demand, and builds a structured re-entry pathway for returning talent at scale. This enables universities to continue doing what they do best, delivering world-class education, while a specialist layer handles the employment outcomes that increasingly define their value proposition to prospective students. The infrastructure gap is well-defined. The demand on both sides is demonstrable. The conditions for a scalable solution are in place. The post The missing infrastructure for India’s returning global talent appeared first on The PIE News .
15 Jun 2026
98% of leaders say study abroad shaped their path to leadership
Industry leaders across more than 20 fields have reflected on the “transformational” impact of study abroad experiences, with 98% indicating their international experience shaped their professional growth into leadership roles. The research , conducted by Institute of International Education (IIE) and AIFS Abroad, drew on in-depth interviews with 44 executives and decision-makers, and was launched at the NAFSA conference in Orlando last month. “The skills and perspectives gained through education abroad are not only relevant but essential for effective leadership in today’s interconnected world,” wrote AIFS Foundation president William Gertz. He highlighted that leaders consistently pointed to their experiences abroad as “pivotal moments in their personal and professional development”. Of the 44 respondents, 96% indicated that going overseas was influential in developing cross-cultural leadership skills, improving their ability to work with people from different backgrounds, manage diverse teams, and build relationships across borders. What’s more, another central finding was that respondents often did not fully appreciate the professional value of study abroad immediately after graduation, with its impact accumulating over time. One of the report’s authors, IIE director of research Julie Baer, emphasised that study abroad “is not just a short-term academic experience, but a long-term accelerator for leadership”. Notably, she said the benefits were not limited to certain fields but showed up across sectors “from science and technology, finance, arts, law, and education”. The findings come at a turbulent time for America’s geopolitical relations, with fewer international students set to come to the US next academic year, and continued uncertainty around Optional Practical Training (OPT) and H-1B worker visas. As the administration continues to obstruct international talent coming to the US, the study abroad sector has seen some recent congressional victories , but it too has suffered from consistent federal funding cuts and visa challenges over the past 16 months. And while appetite for study abroad among US students continues to grow, rising costs and financial pressures at institutions are increasingly acting as barriers to participation. According to a 2025 survey of four-year college students, over three-quarters of respondents said they hoped or planned to study abroad. Yet finances remained the main concern for 80% of students and nearly half of those not planning to study abroad said the cost prevented them from doing so. We see a key opportunity to broaden how we talk about study abroad across industries Julie Baer, Institute of International Education (IIE) Against this backdrop, Baer said “now more than ever” it was “critical” to understand how international education shapes individuals’ careers and their development as leaders. “Particularly in this moment, employers are evolving their hiring expectations to look for people who can adapt, communicate across differences, and solve complex problems.” “The findings indicate that going abroad can be a strategic investment in the future workforce and leadership pipeline,” Baer continued, advocating for a broadening of how we talk about study abroad across industries. The report adds to a growing body of research highlighting economic benefit of international exchange, with NAFSA workforce research finding 96% of US businesses said performance would improve with greater global experience among employees. As such, Baer highlighted the importance of individuals showcasing and articulating the value of such experiences, with many of the survey respondents highlighting how educational abroad is often not highlighted on resumes. “We have an opportunity to move from thinking about study abroad as ‘where did you go’ to understanding it as ‘how did you grow into a leader,’” she said. The post 98% of leaders say study abroad shaped their path to leadership appeared first on The PIE News .
15 Jun 2026
Nigeria lifts tuition remittance cap even as visa concerns persist
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has increased the maximum tuition fee remittance for students studying overseas from $15,000 to $25,000 per semester as part of broader reforms aimed at improving access to foreign exchange. The revised limit, contained in the CBN’s Foreign Exchange Manual, Fourth Edition, came into effect on June 1 and applies to tuition payments made through authorised dealer banks for eligible overseas higher education institutions. The policy also clarifies that tuition and maintenance allowances will be treated separately. Where tuition and maintenance fees are billed together, remittances will be made directly to the educational institution. Students living off-campus, or whose maintenance fees are billed separately, may receive maintenance remittances of up to $5,000 per quarter. Nursery, primary, secondary, foundation and A-Level programs remain excluded from the framework. Stakeholders welcomed the move, saying it better reflects the rising cost of international education. “From a practical perspective, the policy may improve flexibility and predictability for students already committed to overseas study, particularly those attending institutions with higher tuition costs,” Simisola Smith, West Africa associate director at Grok Global Services , told The PIE News . “The reality is that tuition fees at many international institutions now exceed the previous $15,000 threshold, particularly across destinations such as the UK, US, Canada, Australia and parts of Europe.” We are operating in an environment where students are increasingly concerned about whether they will be able to secure visa appointments, obtain approvals, navigate changing immigration policies and ultimately begin their studies on time Bimpe Femi-Oyewo, Edward Consulting However, experts stressed that the revised cap addresses only one part of a much wider set of challenges facing Nigerian students. “I do not believe the remittance cap is currently the primary factor shaping Nigerian students’ study abroad prospects. For many students, the bigger challenges today are access, visa uncertainty and funding,” said Bimpe Femi-Oyewo, founder and CEO of Edward Consulting . “We are operating in an environment where students are increasingly concerned about whether they will be able to secure visa appointments, obtain approvals, navigate changing immigration policies and ultimately begin their studies on time.” She also pointed to growing funding challenges for African students. “While scholarships remain available, access to educational financing has become more challenging for many African students. Several major loan providers that previously supported international students have reduced or paused lending in parts of Africa, creating additional barriers for students who may still have unmet financial needs after receiving scholarships.” The comments come amid growing uncertainty across several major destination markets. Earlier this year, The PIE reported that Nigerian student interest in the US had fallen by more than 50% following the expansion of Donald Trump’s travel ban, with students increasingly exploring alternative destinations. Recent analysis by The PIE found Nigerian applicants faced a UK student visa refusal rate of 22.6% in the first quarter of 2026, among the highest rates recorded among the UK’s major source countries. Over the previous 12 months, refused Nigerian applicants generated an estimated £1.6 million in visa fee income for the UK government. Financial pressures have also intensified in recent years as the naira has weakened and international tuition costs have risen, prompting concerns over mounting tuition debt among Nigerian students in the UK as access to foreign exchange became more difficult, The PIE previously reported . “Affordability and financial considerations have always been important factors for Nigerian students, but they have become even more significant in recent years due to currency devaluation, rising tuition costs and broader economic pressures,” said Femi-Oyewo. “Families are asking not only whether they can afford a destination, but whether they can realistically obtain a visa, access funding and begin their studies without disruption.” As a result, she said, Nigerian students are showing growing interest in destinations such as the UK, France, Spain, Ireland, Belgium and other parts of Europe, where pathways to study, work and long-term planning may appear more predictable. Smith echoed Femi-Oyewo’s view that affordability has become one of the most influential factors shaping student decision-making, with families increasingly evaluating destinations through the lens of return on investment. “The discussion is no longer simply about destination prestige; it is increasingly about return on investment,” she said. Students are carefully assessing tuition costs, exchange-rate exposure, scholarship availability, employability outcomes, graduate work opportunities and long-term career pathways, she added. From a recruitment perspective, Smith said the revised cap may help improve conversion among students who are already committed to studying abroad by reducing one financial obstacle within the payment process. However, she cautioned against overstating its impact. “I would expect the impact to be positive, but relatively modest when viewed in isolation,” she said. “The revised remittance cap is helpful, but I would not describe it as the primary factor shaping study-abroad prospects at the moment. One of the strongest themes emerging from our recent market intelligence work across Sub-Saharan Africa is that recruitment has become increasingly confidence-led.” “The challenge is less about demand disappearing and more about increasing friction within the decision-making process.” The post Nigeria lifts tuition remittance cap even as visa concerns persist appeared first on The PIE News .
15 Jun 2026
Why did all 5 Chen siblings study dentistry in Spain? Meet the world’s smartest family of dentists
Meet the Chen family, the internet’s new favourite and definitely a contender for the title of “smartest family of dentists in the world.” Dad’s a dentist. Mum’s a dentist. All five kids? Dentists too. All of them graduated from some of the most prestigious dental schools in the US, including Harvard University, New York University, Northwestern University, and Tufts University. They’ve all risen to viral fame, and why wouldn’t they? They’re the type of family your parents would compare you to. Table of contents: Five siblings, one degree Where and what the children of the smartest family of dentists in the world studied Following in the footsteps of their parentsFollowing in the footsteps of their parents Is Spain a good country to study dentistry View this post on Instagram A post shared by niq chen (@niq) Five siblings, one degree Most siblings carve out their own paths. Some compete. Some intentionally choose different schools, different careers, and different cities. But when it comes to the Chen siblings — Dr. Nina Chen, Dr. Audree Chen, Dr. Niq Chen, Dr. Aleq Chen, and Dr. Nasdaq Chen — they chose to stick together. Same primary, middle, and high schools. And when it came time to choose their future paths, they decided not to be apart. They moved abroad together. Same country. Same university. Same degree. In a YouTube video, one of the children, Dr. Niq Chen, joked that they’re like Velcro. And he’s not wrong. The siblings even co-authored a study titled, “Utilising granulomatous tissue as a membrane for primary closure: Introducing Leon’s Everted Gingival Pouch (LEGP) technique”. And while they may have stuck together through dental school, each of the Chen children has built an impressive academic journey of their own for their postgraduate degrees. View this post on Instagram A post shared by niq chen (@niq) Where and what the children of the smartest family of dentists in the world studied Dr Nina Chen (1st child) University: Universidad Europea de Madrid and New York University (NYU) Degrees: Bachelor’s in Dentistry and a postgraduate degree Specialisation: Periodontics and implant dentistry Dr Audree Chen (2nd child) University: Universidad Europea de Madrid and Tufts University Degrees: Bachelor’s in Dentistry, a postgraduate degree, and a joint Master of Science degree Specialisation: Prosthodontics Dr Niq Chen (3rd child) University: Universidad Europea de Madrid and Columbia University Degrees: Bachelor’s in Dentistry and a postdoctoral degree Specialisation: Periodontics Dr Aleq Chen (4th child) University: Universidad Europea de Madrid and Tufts University Degrees: Bachelor’s in Dentistry and a postdoctoral degree Specialisation: Prosthodontics Dr Nasdaq Chen (5th child) University: Universidad Europea de Madrid and Columbia University Degrees: Bachelor’s in Dentistry and a postdoctoral degree Specialisation: Implantology View this post on Instagram A post shared by Universidad Europea (@ueuropea) Following in the footsteps of their parents Their interest in dentistry comes as no surprise. It might have even been inevitable. Their father, Dr. Leon Chen, is known for his work in implant dentistry and dental innovation, while their mother, Dr. Jennifer Cha, is a co-founder of an international clinic chain. While having all five children become dentists is uncommon, following in a parent’s footsteps is not unheard of, especially in the medical field. While dentistry and medicine are some of the hardest jobs in the world , having firsthand insight, access to mentorship, and early exposure can make these careers more familiar and achievable. For the Chen siblings, having two accomplished dentists as parents meant they grew up seeing firsthand how rewarding a career in dentistry can be. Is Spain a good country to study dentistry? With a family resume stacked with names like Harvard, NYU, and Tufts, many may assume the Chen siblings completed every step of their education in the US. But instead of staying home for their dental degrees, they moved halfway across the world to Universidad Europea de Madrid. So why Spain? While we don’t exactly know why they did it, we’ve done some research. For one, the Universidad Europea de Madrid offers an internationally recognised dental programme with a strong clinical focus and early hands-on training. The university offers a Bachelor’s degree in Dentistry (taught in English)and a Master’s in Dentistry (taught only in Spanish). The thing is, the university isn’t ranked in the QS World University Rankings by Subject for Dentistry. However, it has been recognised as one of the best in Spain, ranking fifth in the 23rd edition of El Mundo ‘s prestigious ranking. Besides, there’s a global perspective. Studying in Madrid exposes students to diverse patient populations, different healthcare systems, and international standards of care — an experience that can broaden both clinical skills and cultural understanding. Oh, and it’s cheap(er). An undergraduate degree in dentistry at Universidad Europea de Madrid would cost approximately 24,040 euros (US$28,208) per year. That’s way less than what you would be paying for in the US — and just imagine their parents having to pay for five children to attend dentistry school. For the Chen family, whose identity is built on things together and long-term thinking, the decision seems to be about expanding their reach rather than stepping away from the US. Disclaimer: This article was last updated on June 16, 2026.
15 Jun 2026
Watch: Ronny Chieng’s Harvard graduation address
The post Watch: Ronny Chieng’s Harvard graduation address appeared first on The PIE News .
13 Jun 2026
Judge overturns Trump policies targeting travel ban nationals
In a 135-page ruling , Obama-appointed judge John McConnell said despite following official visa processes, applicants had been “stuck waiting, for months on end, for benefit requests that USCIS refuses to adjudicate”. “USCIS’s hold on adjudications cannot be attributed to anything that these individuals did wrong; rather, it arises solely by the happenstance of their birth,” he concluded. The court held that USCIS, a branch of the Department of Homeland Security (DoS), had violated immigration laws enacted by Congress, leaving swathes of people from the 39 travel ban countries in “indeterminate legal limbo”. The ruling differs from prior preliminary injunction wins, which generally limited relief to the named plaintiffs in the case. In this instance, however, the judge vacated the underlying policies, carrying a far broader impact. McConnell’s decision marks a victory for a coalition of immigrant service organisations and labour unions that filed the case in March, challenging several USCIS policies that indefinitely suspended applications for visa changes and extensions for all travel ban nations. The restrictive policies followed the shooting of two national Guardsmen in Washington DC by an Afghan national in November 2025, after which Trump vowed to “permanently pause” all migration from “third world countries”. They included a nationwide hold on all asylum adjudications, a freeze on processing green cards, work permits and adjustment of status as well as a retroactive re-review of immigration benefits already granted to citizens of travel ban countries, among other measures. The ruling comes as graduating international students from the 39 nations face risk of detention or deportation if their visas expire and they are left out of status after the 60-day grace period for F-1 visa holders to leave the country, obtain a new visa, transfer institutions or start work, which they can only do if USCIS resumes processing. While USCIS must now resume adjudicating petitions and applications from travel ban nationals, experts have warned of prolonged delays and possible future pauses if the agency chooses to appeal the ruling. USCIS’s hold on adjudications cannot be attributed to anything that these individuals did wrong; rather, it arises solely by the happenstance of their birth John McConnell, United States District Court Students, expressing fears of remaining in limbo, have been advised to contact university advisors and immigration attorneys on their individual situations. More broadly, commentators have hailed the Rhode Island court decision a victory for immigrant communities and the rule of law. “This ruling reaffirms a basic principle: the federal government cannot shut down lawful immigration pathways or discriminate against people based on where they come from,” said Democracy Forward CEO Skye Perryman. “Our communities deserve a fair process government by law, not political targeting rooted in fear mongering and discrimination.” The judgement came the same day the Senate approved a new $70 billion immigration enforcement bill ensuring ICE, Border Patrol and other federal agencies are funded for the remainder of Trump’s presidency. DHS did not immediately respond to The PIE News’s request for comment. The post Judge overturns Trump policies targeting travel ban nationals appeared first on The PIE News .
12 Jun 2026
How thinking and making shape the next gen of creatives
Choosing a career path as a teenager can feel overwhelming. I remember, quite a few moons ago, weighing up all the options in front of me and wondering which course would give me the best chance of employment, but also whether I’d actually learn what the real world would one day ask of me. It’s a tension that never really goes away, and it’s one I see reflected in the students who walk through our doors every year. At NABA , Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti, the purpose is clear: through Artistic Intelligence, we nurture people to design a new tomorrow. The approach we take to creative education is built on two deceptively simple principles: thinking and making. Not one before the other. Not theory now, practice later. Both, always, in conversation with each other. You’ll see this running through our BA programmes at the NABA London campus in Fashion Design, Fashion Marketing Management, and Design, where learning is multidisciplinary and closely reflects how creative work actually happens. On the thinking side, students are constantly encouraged to question ideas before they make anything. That means developing a clear point of view and asking why a project should exist in the first place. This is where concepts are truly shaped, not just ideas generated. Then comes the making. Students move quickly into prototyping, experimenting and testing ideas through physical or digital outputs. The key is iteration: making something, reflecting on it, refining it, and often looping back to rethink the original concept entirely — learning by doing. In practice, this plays out through studio-based learning, project briefs that mirror real-world constraints, and continuous critique sessions. Feedback is fast, honest and collaborative, just as it would be in a professional creative environment. Whether a student ends up sewing a piece for a fashion show or designing packaging for a global brand, the process of thinking and making together is what helps them discover what makes their work distinctly theirs When we look at our data, according to a 2025 survey by Doxa, 90% of NABA graduates find employment within a year of completing their studies — a figure that rises to 94% for those who complete a Master of Arts or Academic Master programme. These numbers speak not just to the quality of the education, but to how well it maps onto what the creative industries are actually looking for. What makes this approach particularly powerful is that students are never just “studying theory” in isolation. From day one, they work as if they are already in a studio or agency: responding to briefs, managing deadlines, presenting ideas, defending creative decisions, and building a portfolio as they go. By the time they graduate, they’re not translating academic work into professional practice — they’ve already been doing it for years. But perhaps the most valuable outcome isn’t the portfolio or the technical skills. It’s the sense of creative identity that emerges along the way. Whether a student ends up sewing a piece for a fashion show or designing packaging for a global brand, the process of thinking and making together is what helps them discover what makes their work distinctly theirs. In a world where the role of human creativity is being questioned more than ever, that feels like exactly the right thing to be teaching. About the author : Diego Mattiolo is School Director and Head of Education at NABA, Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti’s new London campus. With over ten years of international experience in academic management, he brings strong expertise in leading multicultural teams and developing dynamic, student-centred learning environments. He has experience in key growth initiatives, maintained high teaching standards, and delivered distinctive educational experiences. The post How thinking and making shape the next gen of creatives appeared first on The PIE News .
12 Jun 2026
Sharon Harvey, Michigan Language Assessment
Describe yourself in three words or phrases. Outgoing. Frenetic. Inquisitive. What do you like most about your job? I love the international aspect of it. I love the fact that we do actually help people change their lives. There’s a project we’re working on in Mexico with some local partners and a US healthcare recruiter, and we’re helping to train nursing graduates in Mexico to get their English level up to the right requirement for nursing in the US. And then on a path through the professional qualifications and into a placement and a job in the US. These are young people who may have dreamt of coming here, and we’re giving them a legal pathway into the US and giving them the opportunity to change their lives and potentially change the lives of their families back home. That seems like a good thing to be able to wake up in the morning and do. Describe a project or initiative you’re currently working on that excites you. That one. Because when you’re bigger it can be about numbers on a spreadsheet and trends, but because we’re a smaller company you have more chances to connect with the individuals whose lives you’re changing with what you do. It’s so special and it’s why we exist but it’s very easy to get swept away with the business dynamics, so it’s really nice to put the put the people and the individuals back into what we do. What’s a small daily habit that helps you in your work? I love swimming. I wake up in the morning and I do some kind of workout to clear my mind. I always say I have all my best ideas when swimming. My team probably hate the days when I swim, because I tend to have an idea and come in with lots of actions for people. But I think it’s really important to look after yourself physically in order to look after yourself mentally, and I’m very much of the thinking that you have to put your own oxygen mask on first, so I have to be okay to then create an environment in which everybody else is okay. What’s one change you’d like to see in our sector over the next few years? I’d love to see policy changes. I’d love to see a realisation, a realisation of the contribution that the international community makes in any country. I’m an immigrant in the US myself, and I was given the right to come and work in this country because I brought a specialised skill set that that was needed, and I was welcomed on that basis. We held a symposium two weeks ago talking about nursing shortages in the, in the US and it highlighted that if you don’t enable people to come here or to the UK, we have aging populations and there are not enough people to look after us so you can’t take a blanket approach. And in education, you want to bring the best minds and the most inquisitive minds, irrespective of where that person was born. So I’d like there to stop being these sweeping generalisations that have such a negative effect on everybody, whether it’s an institution not being able to bring in the right faculty or the best students not being able to come. What’s one piece of advice you’d give to someone starting out in this field? Make connections. Make friends. Be kind to people. It doesn’t matter where they’re from, it doesn’t matter who they work for, but get your network. Because when you get to a role like mine, your your your knowledge and your skills obviously gets you up to a certain point, but I always say business is with people. And if you don’t have the right personal connections and you don’t have good relationships and goodwill, you’re going to struggle, whereas if you do, then somebody will put their hand out and they will help you if you need it. The post Sharon Harvey, Michigan Language Assessment appeared first on The PIE News .
12 Jun 2026
Don’t write your scholarship essay until you know about this one thing
Every application to a university or for a scholarship has a story to tell. The problem is, most of us don’t often realise we can and should be the heroes of it. But that’s exactly the main thing everyone should focus on when writing scholarship essays, according to Pavan K Sriram , a three-time scholarship winner to study in the US and Europe. The students who stand out aren’t always the smartest or the most polished — they’re the ones who understand their “hero journey” and know how to tell it honestly. “The ones who secure scholarships all have one thing in common,” he says. “They have a deep passion for becoming the agent of change in whatever field they’re in.” Sriram would know. He has won several scholarships, including the fully funded Erasmus Mundus scholarship, one of Europe’s most competitive programmes. Today, he mentors students across India and the Global South, helping them navigate applications to top universities worldwide. What makes his story interesting is that he never grew up expecting any of this. “[Up until my undergraduate years] I had no clue about scholarships at all,” he says. Sriram won scholarships to study in the UK, Spain, and Norway. Today, he helps others with their application, including their scholarship essays. Source: Pexels/Mehmet Turkgut Kirkgoz Meet Pavan K Sriram, a 3x scholarship winner turned expert on scholarship essays Back then, studying abroad felt almost impossible for Sriram. He came from a modest family in India, not the kind who could afford to plan their futures in US dollars or euros. Government jobs were considered a dream. They were stable and paid decently. But studying in countries like the US and the UK? That was for other people to dream towards. Sriram instead pursued a Bachelor of Engineering in Mechanical Engineering at Visvesvaraya Technological University and went on to become an application engineer at The Timken Company, a global technology leader in engineered bearings and an industrial motion company. Then one work trip would change his future. While travelling to the US to train as a mechanical engineer, Sriram met people from all over who had funded their education entirely through scholarships. Suddenly, the idea seemed more possible. Even realistic for someone like him. When he returned to India, he started researching opportunities for mechanical engineering students and stumbled across Erasmus Mundus. He applied and t hree months later, he got the email. Out of the thousands of applicants from around India, he was selected as one of just 18 fully funded scholars. “I knew it was competitive,” he says. “But I also felt I had an interesting story.” Sriram went on to study at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya in Spain and at Swansea University in the UK as part of his Erasmus Mundus, pursuing an MSc in Computational Mechanics. His journey didn’t stop there. He later secured his second scholarship, the Dorothy Hodgkin scholarship, in the UK for his PhD, as well as a third scholarship funded jointly by the Norwegian government and industry partners. However, he did not complete his PhD. Sriram instead returned to Bangalore, India. Today, he’s the founder of two companies, Kohort and the Growth Collective. Kohort is a platform that provides a safe, supportive space for members to connect, share their passions, and make meaningful contributions to society. Meanwhile, The Growth Collective is India’s first queer opportunity and leadership ecosystem, where queer youth can safely access education, careers, and change-making spaces. He also mentors students who are considering studying abroad. So, what is the ‘hero journey’ in scholarship essays all about? Sriram often tells his mentees that every applicant has a “hero journey.” But it’s not about pretending to be extraordinary or sounding perfect. In fact, he thinks that’s where many scholarship applicants get it wrong. “Everyone thinks they need to be exceptional,” he says. “But I never believed myself to be an excellent profile. I just believed I had a story.” According to him, that story is what scholarship committees are actually looking for. Not robots with straight As and perfect GPAs. Not someone who copies personal statement templates from the internet. They have to be as authentic as possible. Committees are seeking people who know who they and who they want to be. And if given the chance to study a subject in a country, what they hope to do with the opportunity. “We all have different struggles and journeys,” he says. “ You just have to be vulnerable enough to show that, irrespective of what life puts you through, you keep climbing back.” That’s why Sriram wants students to think deeply before they even begin applying. Why this degree? Why this university? Why now? Why you? If an applicant cannot answer those questions honestly, the application will likely sound too generic. The “hero journey” will make them sound different. Here’s why the hero journey is the #1 thing applicants should care about when writing their scholarship essays Many people think scholarships are just about funding. But Sriram emphasises they’re also important investments by the one giving it, be it an individual or an organisation. Whether it is Erasmus Mundus, Commonwealth, or Chevening, scholarship bodies and providers are ultimately asking themselves one question: what kind of person are we investing in? This is why Sriram believes authenticity matters far more than applicants realise. “Whoever is funding expects something,” he says. “Not money back, but they expect you to become an ambassador for the field or the programme.” This is why students with “average” profiles should not automatically count themselves out. That doesn’t mean hardship alone will win scholarships. Sriram warns against turning applications into desperation pitches. Instead, personal struggles should only appear ig they genuinely shape the applicant’s motivations and goals. One student he mentored wrote about being pressured into marriage before fighting to continue her studies. She believed she had something to give the world, and that shaped the rest of her story. For students worrying that they are not “good enough”, Sriram’s advice is surprisingly practical: stop obsessing over perfection and start building clarity. Audit your profiles honestly, then identify scholarships that actually align with their strengths, and improve their weak areas. If they’re rejected, accept it as part of the process. “An early no is always a good sign,” Sriram says. “If you stay committed to your journey, it can become a yes later.” Watch the full conversation with Sriram here!
12 Jun 2026
University of Delaware: Get hands-on, real-world experience in public policy
A year ago, Gema Otheliansyah won a Fulbright scholarship to study at the University of Delaware. But the accolade only came after years of work far removed from prestige. As part of Indonesia’s Ministry of Finance, he went down to villages and local governments to help officers better understand public finance. Budgets were stretched thin, and at this level, public spending reaching the people it was meant to serve can change lives. Those years of frontline experience would later convince Otheliansyah to join the Joseph R. Biden, Jr. School of Public Policy and Administration. Driven by his goal to create real change for underserved communities back home, he saw Delaware’s reputation for turning policy theory into practice as the right home to pursue a Master of Public Administration (MPA). He’s since graduated and looks back on his time here as one with many opportunities beyond anything he’d ever dared to dream of. Learn by doing The UD Biden School is ranked 25th among 266 national public affairs schools, placing it in the top 10% of public affairs graduate programmes in the country. Ask graduates and they’ll tell you the rankings are well deserved. But what truly makes their MPA so effective is the Delaware Model, an approach that ensures all students have industry experience before they graduate. That means working as graduate research assistants in research and public service centres, advising legislators, managing real policy projects, and building relationships with actual decision-makers. In other words, experience that separates UD Biden School graduates in a competitive job market. “The UD Biden School, for international students in particular, is beyond just high-quality education and professional development for the future generations of public servants,” says Professor Alisa Moldavanova, Director of Master’s Studies and a former international graduate student herself. “It’s a community of support with a multitude of growth opportunities.” Those experiential learning opportunities are many here but three stand out for the depth of access they offer. The Jerome R. Lewis Legislative Fellows Programme builds professional skills and offers insider experience in how government works, benefiting students across career paths. Source: University of Delaware Inside the statehouse: The Jerome R. Lewis Legislative Fellows Programme Few student experiences get you closer to real government than the Jerome R. Lewis Legislative Fellows Programme . Since 1982, it has placed UD Biden School students in the Delaware General Assembly, where fellows work three days a week with legislators and legislative staff on live policy issues — criminal justice reform, healthcare, government accountability and transparency, and women’s rights — conducting nonpartisan research that directly informs legislation. This is a paid fellowship, and you’ll not be shadowing anyone. You’ll be producing work that reaches state leaders across both the legislative and executive branches. Open to full-time master’s students and strong undergraduates through a competitive selection process, the programme builds a professional network inside the Delaware government that stays with you long after graduation. Going global: The Seoul Case Study Programme The Seoul Case Study Programme is a partnership between the UD Biden School, the University of Seoul, and the Seoul Metropolitan Government. It puts you in one of the world’s most sophisticated Asian cities alongside graduate students and faculty from institutions like Cornell and the University of Georgia. Over an intensive week in Seoul, you’ll study urban governance firsthand through site visits, policy briefings, and direct engagement with city officials. The programme covers urban planning, transportation, public health, housing, economic development, and e-governance through the lens of a megacity that has redefined what modern government looks like. Past participants have even called it a “life-changing experience”. The comparative policy perspective that you’ll bring back is the kind that most early-career public servants spend years developing on their own. Many participants described the Seoul Case Study Programme as a memorable experience that combined learning with immersion in Seoul’s rich culture and history. Source: University of Delaware Building a professional network: The ICMA Student Chapter The ICMA Student Chapter at UD will connect you directly to the International City/County Management Association the leading professional organisation for local government managers, with more than 11,000 members worldwide. ICMA exists to advance professional local government management and create sustainable communities, and its student chapter at UD can add you to that network before you hold a professional title. That means you’ll get to attend leadership development events, where you can engage with practitioners, and build relationships that carry real weight in a field where professional standing opens doors. The bigger picture The UD Biden School’s complete list of student opportunities includes research assistantships, a semester in Washington DC, competitive summer internships with top organisations and nonprofits, graduate public administration fellowships, civic engagement initiatives, and more – every one of them designed to get you into the field while you’re still a student. Otheliansyah is one student who has taken full advantage – competing this year in the Network of Schools Public Policy, Affairs, and Administration’s (NASPAA) global student simulation. He hopes more aspiring public leaders can gain as much as he did. “I come from an ordinary background, so I hope this can encourage anyone who is working toward their goals,” he says. “If you stay committed, keep learning, and continue moving forward even when the process feels difficult, good results can follow.” Follow UD Biden School on Facebook , Instagram , and LinkedIn
12 Jun 2026
Recruiting in Colombia demands a long-term presence and communication with parents
A new report from EdCo LATAM Consulting explores the culture within which Colombian students and families make choices about study abroad. A major theme in the report, entitled “ Colombia Connections: Tools and Tactics for Smarter Student Recruitment ,” is that successful student recruitment in the country depends on investing in a long-term presence that is grounded in human connection. Family is at the heart of everything in Colombian culture, and education is no exception. Understanding this context is important for institutions establishing a presence in this increasingly competitive student sending market. There are now about 75,000 Colombians studying overseas, and it is now common for up to 80 foreign universities and schools to be at education fairs in the country promoting their programmes. Rafael Minauro, senior partner manager at EdCo LATAM, notes: “Institutions cannot rely on their websites to attract Colombian students. The focus should be on developing interpersonal relationships, speaking the same language, understanding unique needs, sharing experiences, highlighting graduate success stories, and developing confidence. This all takes time, but it really pays off in the long run when student enrolments consistently start to escalate.” A growing market A greater proportion of Colombian students can now afford study abroad than in the past. The economy has grown by an average of 3.5% a year for the past 15 years, helping to alleviate poverty and bring more of the population into the middle class. Still, income equalities remain and are often pronounced along regional lines, making geographical segmentation essential. The report breaks down the industrial characteristics of each region to highlight which programmes may be especially interesting for students living there. Regional economies can be as important as the national economy, as Colombians going home to work after study abroad will be looking for jobs with local employers. The report notes: “Students from Bogotá and Medellín may be more interested in technology, business and politics-related programmes, while students from Colombia’s Caribbean region may be drawn towards international trade, logistics, and commerce programmes.” Demand for study abroad is strong in part because domestic higher education capacity is low and tuition at the highest-quality Colombian universities is sometimes as expensive as tuition at well-ranked foreign universities. There is ongoing demand for English-language studies, and growing interest in degree studies abroad. The report notes that prospective undergraduate and graduate students tend to be quite different: Undergraduate-level Colombians tend to be younger than their peers in other countries due to the structure of their high-school system. They are often under the age of 18. They need more care and support as a result, and their parents are heavily involved in decision-making. By contrast, postgraduate-level students often have years of work experience and make more independent choices. Overall, there is a significant base of potential students from which to recruit: 26% of the 53.5 million-strong population is between the ages of 14 and 28. La Familia Simon Terrigton, director and co-founder of EdCo LATAM Consulting, uses a personal anecdote to reinforce the dominant cultural feature of Colombia: “’La Familia,” which means ‘Family’ in Spanish, is something I have been thinking about recently. This weekend, my daughter and I made a Colombian Coffee mug at pottery and wrote ‘La Familia’ on the mug as it perfectly sums up how Colombia and other LATAM countries prioritise family over everything else. I was surprised when in Colombia I had fixed plans (or so I thought) which were then changed due to a distant aunt’s birthday or similar event!” The EdCo LATAM Consulting report emphasises that including parents in campaigns, webinars, discussions, etc. is as important as marketing directed at students themselves at the undergraduate level especially. Translating presentations and web copy into Spanish and Portuguese is also a good idea. “You have to sell your UG programmes to parents, not students,” says account manager Maria Elisa Rodriguez Cardazo. Maria continues: “Parents always want to take care of us and when we’re oceans away, it can be tough for them. Universities should therefore involve parents and family friends from the beginning of the decision-making process.” Beyond parents, there is another important advantage to keeping “La Familia” in mind when recruiting in Colombia: “Providing a high-quality experience for one Colombian student often secures the future enrolment of siblings, cousins, extended family and friends,” says the report. Representing current Colombian students on the institutional website through testimonials and a student ambassador option is also key. The report notes: “Colombian students naturally gravitate towards existing Latin American cohorts on international campuses. By building a critical mass of LATAM students, you create a cultural gravity that makes your campus the default choice for others in the region. The bottom line is that success breeds scale.” An agent-driven market Approximately 60% of Colombian overseas enrolments came through agents, making Colombia the most agent-dependent market in Latin America. Comparatively, 47% and 46% of Brazilian and Mexican students, respectively, are enrolled through agents. Which destinations are popular? While the US higher education system boasts the most Colombian students (just over 10,200 in 2024/25), growth has stalled, with the number of students increasing by only +0.9% from 2023/24 to 2024/25. The Trump administration’s immigration policies have a major deterrent effect. A UCLA analysis found that nine out of ten ICE arrests in the first six months of Trump’s second administration were Latinos. While Colombians were not among the most targeted of Latinos, the overall trend is naturally worrisome. Despite Canada’s enduring popularity among Colombian students, visa policies are making it difficult for Colombians to make it to Canada for studies. Only about 5,800 study permits were issued to Colombians in 2025, down from just over 10,400 in 2023. Australia is a top destination for Colombia’s English-language students, but it is also attractive for higher education, especially for master’s studies. In 2025, more than 2,300 Colombian students were enrolled in Australian universities. However, Australia’s higher education system is highly dependent on its ELICOS (English-language training) system for enrolments from some nationalities, and that system is under immense pressure due to government policies. Fully 38% of Colombians begin in an ELICOS course before progressing to an Australian university programme. The UK has a real opportunity right now. There were only 935 Colombian students in UK universities in 2024/25 (80% at the postgraduate level), but this was up +15% over the previous year, faster growth than from Mexico and Brazil. Spain remains a favoured study destination, hosting more than 23,600 Colombian students in 2022/23. A primary driver of demand is the common language of instruction (Spanish). Mobility is also being spurred by a 2023 agreement between the Colombian and Spanish governments for the mutual recognition of degrees, diplomas, certificates, and tests allowing Colombians access to Spanish universities and vice versa. The report notes that France and Germany are steadily gaining traction, enrolling about 4,000 Colombian students each. For additional background, please see: “ Market Snapshot: International student recruitment in Colombia ” “ Are you paying enough attention to parents in your recruitment marketing? ” The post Recruiting in Colombia demands a long-term presence and communication with parents appeared first on ICEF Monitor - Market intelligence for international student recruitment .
11 Jun 2026
UK’s ELT sector reports declining enrolments through first quarter of 2026
The UK’s English-language teaching sector (ELT) experienced a challenging year in 2025, though the decline in students and student weeks was more moderate than was the fall-off for Canada’s and Australia’s ELT sectors. New data from English UK , the peak body for 85% of all accredited English-language teaching (ELT) centres in the country, shows that state and private member centres hosted 311,815 full-time students face-to-face last year and delivered 998,045 student weeks. Most ELT students (98%) study with private institutions, and of English UK’s 287 members, 264 are in the private sector. We will focus on that sector in this article. Private sector trends Private providers hosted -4.1% fewer students in 2025 than in 2024. Student weeks were down by -10%, and the average stay was 3.1 weeks, down from 3.3 in 2024. The following graphic shows the broad trendline for numbers and weeks from 2021–25. Changes in volume of students and student weeks over five years for English UK’s private member centres. Source: English UK Of all ELT students studying with private providers, 64% were juniors. Though a smaller segment numerically, adult learners tend to spend more time on their courses in the UK and represent two-thirds (65%) of all student weeks. Türkiye and Argentina were the outliers among top 20 source countries for private providers in 2025: they were the only growth markets. Türkiye (#3) contributed +21% more student weeks than in 2024 and +33% more students, while Argentina (#14) was up +24.5% in student weeks and +28.9% in student numbers. The private sector’s two top markets, Italy and Saudi Arabia, dropped by -7.6% and -6.4%, respectively, in terms of student weeks. China accounted for one of the largest declines in weeks (-33.4%), and between 2024 and 2025, it moved from fifth to eighth place among the top 10 markets for the private sector. Asia as a source region is weakening significantly (-26.2%), with weeks from Japan and South Korea down by -16.4% and -10.2%, respectively. The following table provides a detailed picture of private sector trends in 2025 compared with 2024. Changes across private sector source markets from 2024 to 2025. Source: English UK Commenting on the 2025 trends, English UK chief executive Jodie Gray said that in a challenging global context, the UK’s ELT sector is proving resilient and working quickly to adapt to change. “The story in this year’s statistics will surprise few in UK ELT. Yet in a challenging global environment, the UK continues to perform comparatively well. The strong foundations and adaptability sustaining us now will underpin our future. We have been preparing for an uncertain world shaped by geopolitics, technological change and intensifying international competition. This week, we launch two documents setting out how we will act and advocate for the future of UK ELT. Our updated position paper calls on government to move further and faster to create a more supportive operating environment. Initiatives including the Youth Experience Scheme, ID-card group travel, the return of Erasmus+, and our role in supporting delivery of the UK Government’s International Education Strategy offer renewed opportunity.” Roz McGill, English UK’s market development & insights manager, added: “Overall, the data suggests a market under pressure but still active, with patterns of demand shifting rather than disappearing. It also highlights the importance for ELT centres of remaining adaptable in their pricing, product mix, and market focus.” “A challenging environment” About 40% of English UK’s membership (116 private and state centres) submitted data for English UK’s Quarterly Intelligence Cohort (QUIC) Q1 2026 report. Compared with Q1 2025, there was a -7% decrease in student weeks. The decline was driven by weaker adult demand: adult student weeks fell by -10%, while juniors went up by +7%. However, Q1 is generally adult-dominated, with adults responsible for 85% of all student weeks, so the increase from younger students couldn’t significantly mitigate the decline in adult weeks. English UK says: “These findings highlight a sector operating in a challenging environment and underscore the need for members to remain responsive to both short-term fluctuations and longer-term structural characteristics.” For additional background, please see: “ US ELT weeks fell by nearly -8% in 2025 ” “ Malta: Non-EU students keeping ELT weeks stable in the face of falling enrolment from Europe “ “ Canada’s language training sector reinvents pathway programme model in response to policy settings ” “ Australia: Latest enrolment data challenges the government’s assertion of stability for international education this year ” The post UK’s ELT sector reports declining enrolments through first quarter of 2026 appeared first on ICEF Monitor - Market intelligence for international student recruitment .
11 Jun 2026
US visa processing centres in Africa to be reduced by more than half; only the latest barrier for African students
The Trump administration’s clampdown on immigration from Africa is intensifying, and the government has introduced new measures to make it more onerous and expensive for students from many African countries to study in the US. These are part of a pattern of new policies and rules apparently intended to discourage African students, workers, and would-be immigrants to the US. Little by little, the wall gets higher The movement to restrict African nationals from coming to the US began in the summer of 2025, when the administration stopped processing the visas of students (and other nationals) from several countries including Chad, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Libya, Somalia, and Sudan. This list was quickly expanded to include Angola, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Djibouti, Egypt, Ethiopia, Gabon, the Gambia, Liberia, Malawi, Nigeria, Niger, Senegal, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zimbabwe. In bluntest terms: Of the 54 countries in Africa, almost half made the travel ban list in the summer of 2025. Currently, African countries account for the lion’s share of all 39 countries on that list. In January 2026, the government began targeting African students already in the US. Immigration officers were directed to pause visa processing for students from travel-ban countries applying for Optional Practical Training (OPT) and extensions, the H-1B programme, or the work component attached to J-1 visas. That same month, the pause applied to Green Card applicants from 23 African countries, many of which were on the travel ban list. Now, in June 2026, the US State Department is reducing the number of African visa processing offices from 50 consular posts to 20 designated regional hubs. This means all African students will have to travel to one of those 20 hubs to apply for a US study visa and sit for an interview. Some prospective applicants live hundreds of kilometres away from a hub. Reaching a hub may now necessitate flights and staying over in more than one city. The impact Policy after policy is now making it nearly impossible for many African students to study in the US. Through visa bans and high rejection rates; immigration restrictions; and now the reduction of visa processing offices, the barriers are mounting for African students hoping to study in the United States. African markets have been the fastest growing sources of students for US universities in recent years. For example, between 2023/24 and 2024/25, according to IIE data , these were the biggest growth stories, including top 20 markets of Nigeria (#8) and Ghana (#14): Cameroon: +20.5% to 1,180 Ethiopia: +10.5 to 3,400 Tanzania: +11% to 1,140 Uganda: +15% to 1,500 Zimbabwe: +42% to 2,700 Ghana: +36.5% to 12,830 Nigeria: +9% to 21,850 Overall, African enrolments in US higher education institutions grew by +15% in 2024/25 compared with +5% for Asia, +3% for Europe, and +2.5% for Latin America and the Caribbean. For additional background, please see: “ US extends travel ban, Nigeria now included on restricted list “ “ US: Student visa issuances fell by -36% in summer 2025; OPT uncertainty among factors affecting international student demand ” The post US visa processing centres in Africa to be reduced by more than half; only the latest barrier for African students appeared first on ICEF Monitor - Market intelligence for international student recruitment .
11 Jun 2026
Pakistan’s UK recruitment boom is over – what comes next matters more
Pakistan didn’t just grow quickly as a UK recruitment market. It grew faster than the system could handle. In less than five years, the country moved from a secondary source market to one of the UK’s most important student pipelines. Visa issuances rose from under 10,000 in 2019 to around 35,000 at their peak, making Pakistan the third-largest source market globally and second in South Asia. On paper, this looks like a success story. In reality, it was a surge built as much on timing as on strategy. Between 2021 and 2023, the Graduate Route, strong student demand and relatively open visa conditions created a window for rapid expansion. Institutions entered the market at pace, many for the first time and often with limited local understanding. The approach was familiar: scale quickly, rely on aggregator models and drive volume through large agent networks. For a time, it delivered results, but it also created risks that would become increasingly visible as conditions changed. When growth outruns control The problem was not growth itself, but the nature of that growth. A volume-led model built on outsourced recruitment and limited oversight is difficult to sustain in a market that requires nuance, trust and long-term engagement. As conditions tightened, the lack of control inherent in that model became increasingly apparent. Recent changes to visa policy, including restrictions on dependents and increased scrutiny in decision-making, have only accelerated this shift. Processing delays have grown, refusal patterns have become less predictable and confidence across the ecosystem has been affected. For many institutions, the model has started to break under pressure. Some have already stepped back, while others are quietly reducing their exposure. What we are witnessing is not a temporary downturn but a structural correction that is reshaping how institutions engage with the market. A market that was misunderstood Pakistan was never a short-term opportunity. It has always been a relationship-driven market where reputation, consistency and local presence matter, meaning that treating it as a transactional recruitment pipeline was always likely to create structural weaknesses. That divide is now becoming increasingly clear. Institutions that prioritised rapid scale are facing growing pressure, while those that invested in compliance, built direct partnerships and maintained a meaningful in-country presence are largely holding their position. In some cases, they are strengthening it. This contrast matters because it demonstrates that the challenge does not lie with the market itself, but with the recruitment model many institutions chose to adopt. The student has changed There is another shift that cannot be ignored. Students in Pakistan are no longer making decisions based on access alone. They are more informed, more selective and increasingly focused on outcomes, with questions around employability, return on investment and long-term value now sitting at the centre of decision-making. As a result, this is a considerably more mature market than it was even three years ago. Yet many recruitment strategies have not fully adapted to that reality, creating a growing disconnect between institutional approaches and student expectations. The end of volume-led thinking The volume-led recruitment model is no longer fit for purpose in Pakistan. What comes next requires a reset. Institutions need to move beyond scale as the primary objective and focus instead on sustainability. That means developing clearer value propositions, strengthening oversight of recruitment channels and placing greater emphasis on quality over volume. Pakistan will continue to play a major role in UK international recruitment, but it will increasingly reward institutions that operate with discipline, invest in understanding the market and prioritise compliance and student outcomes It also requires more deliberate choices about partnerships. Working with fewer, more trusted agents rather than broad and loosely managed networks is likely to become increasingly important as institutions seek to maintain both compliance and credibility. Above all, it requires presence. While withdrawing from the market may reduce short-term risk, doing so can create a far greater long-term cost by eroding relationships, visibility and trust that are often far harder to rebuild than maintain. A defining moment for the sector This is not a downturn. It is a filter that is separating institutions that viewed Pakistan as a short-term opportunity from those willing to engage with it as a long-term market. The underlying fundamentals remain strong, with student demand intact, awareness continuing to grow and the pipeline itself showing little sign of disappearing. However, the rules of engagement have changed. Pakistan will continue to play a major role in UK international recruitment, but it will increasingly reward institutions that operate with discipline, invest in understanding the market and prioritise compliance and student outcomes. The opportunity remains. The question is no longer who can grow fastest, but who can sustain that growth over the long term. The post Pakistan’s UK recruitment boom is over – what comes next matters more appeared first on The PIE News .
11 Jun 2026
Duolingo launches new ear-scanning technology at DETcon
The new security product was launched at DETcon London 2026, at the University of London, marking a new innovation in test security and fraud prevention in high-stakes language testing. The use of earbud devices to cheat in exams is on the increase as the technology becomes more readily available. Stealth receivers can stream pre-recorded audio notes or real-time, two-way communications with an accomplice or AI tool outside a secure test room. While standard consumer earbuds are easily spotted, tech-savvy fraudsters are using micro-sized spy earpieces the size of a grain of rice that fit entirely inside the ear canal, making them completely invisible to exam invigilators. Duolingo’s new ear scan technology uses the DET mobile app to collect sensor data while the phone is held close to each ear and then deploys an algorithm to detect hidden earbuds. Under the theme “securing the future of international education in a new world order”, delegates attending DETcon 2026 were able to handle the new technology and talk to cybersecurity experts about DET’s newly released security and score integrity white paper . The white paper details the DET’s multi-layered “human-in-the-loop AI” approach to test security – a framework in which artificial intelligence flags potential irregularities while trained human proctors retain final authority over all decisions affecting test integrity. The white paper is released at a moment of heightened compliance pressure for UK institutions. Delegates were also given a preview of new UKCISA research into international students’ experiences of english language requirements which detailed student perceptions of different modes of testing and conflicting information about what a university will accept as proof of English proficiency. Speakers included BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner OBE, former home secretary, Lord Blunkett, as the conference addressed the most pressing challenges facing the sector including tightening immigration compliance, the integrity of the admissions pipeline, and ensuring that genuine international students can access world-class education. We believe technology like ear scan helps protect the integrity of our university system by preventing cheating, while ensuring that we keep the doors open to genuine students Michael Lynas, Duolingo Michael Lynas, UK and Europe country director for Duolingo said: “We believe technology like ear scan helps protect the integrity of our university system by preventing cheating, while ensuring that we keep the doors open to genuine students.” The Duolingo team were celebrating the two timely awards for the DET at the International e-Assessment Awards. The test was the winner in both “AI in Test Delivery” and “Most Innovative Use of Technology in Assessment” categories, with Alina von Davier, chief of assessment at Duolingo, highlighting the successes in her talk on the future of assessment, as validation of the work her team are doing. The post Duolingo launches new ear-scanning technology at DETcon appeared first on The PIE News .
11 Jun 2026
Watch: How to use Duolingo’s new ear scanner
The post Watch: How to use Duolingo’s new ear scanner appeared first on The PIE News .
11 Jun 2026
IDP Australia outsources onshore visa services to Bravo Migration
The world’s largest agent, IDP Education , has partnered with Bravo Migration , an Australian-based migration services organisation, to provide approved visa support for international students and migrants navigating an increasingly complex visa environment. The partnership will see a dedicated team of Bravo registered migration agents based within IDP Australia’s student placement offices across Australia. The announcement comes amid heightened scrutiny of onshore international student applications in Australia, with the government closely monitoring applications that appear to be just extending a stay without genuine academic progression. Onshore visa support in Australia must be delivered by registered migration agents, with not all students requiring a new visa. As commission for onshore applications is a banned practice, visa support is a chargeable service rather than being linked to a university commission contract. Speaking about the new partnership, Jane Li, regional operations director for IDP Australasia, said “we selected Bravo to be our official partner as they have a proven track record of delivering quality services for their customers that meet the highest standards of compliance and trust”. We selected Bravo to be our official partner as they have a proven track record of delivering quality services for their customers that meet the highest standards of compliance and trust Jane Li, IDP Australia “This partnership means IDP’s team of expert counsellors can focus on providing course advice for our customers, while knowing there are registered migration agents on site for those who have more specific visa queries,” continued Li. IDP has suffered a brutal 90% decline in its share price over the last five years due to restrictive immigration policies for international students, imposed in Australia, Canada, US and UK. This has led to the loss of jobs and a restructuring of the global business. While the company previously employed its own registered migration agents, it is understood that it will now be replaced by Bravo counsellors from the July 1 2026 in all Australian IDP student placement offices. Erica Carneiro, co-founder and director of Bravo Migration, spoke to The PIE, saying: “We are incredibly proud to partner with IDP Australia in this next chapter. International students need more than general migration and visa information — they need clear, specialist advice delivered by experienced professionals who understand both the law and the practical realities of planning a future in Australia.” “This partnership allows us to provide that support at scale, while working alongside one of the most recognised names in international education,” Carneiro said. The post IDP Australia outsources onshore visa services to Bravo Migration appeared first on The PIE News .
11 Jun 2026
MPs slam HOELT as debate over international students continues
Blake Stephenson, MP for Mid Bedfordshire, said the government was “acting without sense and rationale” by pressing ahead with plans for a government SELT – known as the HOELT – to be fully remote . “Remote tests are extremely vulnerable to organised criminal gangs and cheats who, as I have seen at first hand, can easily overcome safeguards with technological workarounds, some of which use cheap equipment readily available on Amazon,” he said during a debate in the House of Commons on June 3. He suggested the government was “opening a new backdoor to Britain for organised criminals to exploit”. Remote tests are extremely vulnerable to organised criminal gangs and cheats who, as I have seen at first hand, can easily overcome safeguards with technological workarounds Blake Stephenson, MP for Mid Bedfordshire “We do not permit remote-only testing for driving theory tests, “Life in the UK” tests or GCSEs,” he added. “So how can we, with a clear conscience, permit it for the test that decides who makes the UK their home?” Labour MP Daniel Zeichner also questioned the approach, asking whether a fully remote test could match the security of in-person, supervised testing”. It follows the IELTS consortium’s shock, and very public, withdrawal from the HOELT tender in March, citing security concerns after the Home Office said it was looking to commission a test that was remote-by-default. The PIE understands that several leading testing providers are still in the running to win the £816 million contract. However, it remains unknown when the official HOELT provider will be revealed – or, indeed, whether the Home Office will keep to the current system, where no one test has an official government endorsement. MPs also debated the quality of some international students in the UK during the Parliamentary session. Stephenson asserted, much to the disagreement of several other MPs, that “far from attracting the best and the brightest, the visa system fails to distinguish between the quality of students”. While he agreed with MP for Edinburgh South West Scott Arthur that the UK is home to many excellent universities, he claimed that many international students were coming to the UK to attend “poorly performing universities”. “That is doing long-term harm to our country and our economy. We must close down that route by establishing a minimum academic standard for incoming students and setting a cap on institutions, based on the quality of educational provision,” he suggested. He mooted a system where graduate visas should only be open to the “best and brightest” students, “while slamming closed this back-door route for low-skilled migrants”. And he stressed that universities should “not be allowed to mark their own homework” and therefore be disallowed from using their own systems for testing international students’ English language skills. Zeichner, meanwhile, pointed out that universities in his Cambridge constituency had “fantastic universities that rely strongly on international students, who we are very proud of”. But he said that many people in his constituency had faced delays in the immigration system “and, I have to say, sometimes limited communication with the Home Office”. “It is hardly a new problem. I have been an MP for 11 years and it has always been the case,” he added. Meanwhile, SNP minister Pete Wishart hit back at the notion that net migration was still a significant problem in the UK, pointing out that this is currently at one of its lowest points since 2012. “All we hear, from what can only be described as a Westminster consensus, is that there is a crisis around immigration and a perception that it is out of control and must be curbed,” he said. But actual net migration figures “do not seem to matter a jot to a government and opposition still trying to convince us, for what I can perceive only as political reasons and purposes, that immigration is out of control”, he said. He added: “The Home Office is happy to continue to paint a picture of escalating migration, and therefore tackling immigration is the core mission for all its activities.” The Home Office is happy to continue to paint a picture of escalating migration, and therefore tackling immigration is the core mission for all its activities Pete Wishart, MP for Perth and Kinross-shire Parliamentary under-secretary of state for migration and citizenship Mike Tapp said that the Labour government continues to “welcome and value” international students. “We have the best universities in the world, and we want the best minds in every country to aspire to complete their education here,” he added. And he said that it was important for the government to work with universities on a compliance system that worked but still attracted “the greatest minds to our country”. “Abuse on that route is down by 30% since we came into government, but last year we still saw 11,000 individuals enter on the student route and go on to claim asylum,” he said. It comes as UK universities face tightened compliance restrictions, rating them on a sliding scale based on visa refusal, course completion and attendance metrics. The more stringent Basic Compliance Assessment (BCA) measures come amid a rise in visa refusals – with many institutions complaining of an opaque and arbitrary decision-making process from the UKVI. An ongoing PIE News investigation shows the real cost of the system, with the Home Office raking in some £9.4m in visa fees from refused students in the past 12 months alone. Meanwhile, some universities with policies not to refund tuition fee deposits are continuing to issue CASs to students from high-risk markets despite their high risk of being refused a visa. In-country agents are bearing the brunt of disgruntled students’ concerns, with one prominent agency telling The PIE of an incident where a student who had lost their deposit brought a gun to one of its offices in Pakistan. The post MPs slam HOELT as debate over international students continues appeared first on The PIE News .
11 Jun 2026
India steps up bid to reverse brain drain with global researcher scheme
India has opened applications for the Prime Minister Research Chair (PMRC) Scheme 2026, a flagship initiative aimed at attracting accomplished Indian-origin researchers, scientists, technologists and professionals from around the world into the country’s higher education and research sector. Launched by the Department of Higher Education under the Ministry of Education, the scheme seeks to connect global Indian talent with India’s expanding research, development and innovation landscape through placements at premier government higher education institutions, national laboratories and research centres. The program will engage at least 120 researchers over five years, from 2026/27 to 2030/31, across three categories: young research fellows, senior fellows and research chairs. The PMRC scheme will focus on 13 priority sectors, including artificial intelligence, quantum computing, semiconductors, cybersecurity, healthcare, biotechnology, climate change, advanced materials, manufacturing, agriculture technologies, the blue economy and atomic energy. Selected fellows will receive fellowship support, research grants, relocation assistance, access to laboratories and opportunities to collaborate with leading government institutions in India. Depending on category, fellowship support ranges from Rs 15 lakh to Rs 60 lakh annually (approximately £13,000-£52,000), alongside research grants of up to Rs 5 crore (around £435,000). Eligible applicants include Indian nationals working abroad, Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) cardholders and Persons of Indian Origin (PIOs) with significant achievements in research, innovation and technology. The scheme follows earlier government efforts to attract overseas Indian researchers and was first discussed by the IIT Council in 2025 as part of broader plans to strengthen India’s research capacity and attract global Indian talent into strategically important sectors. Earlier this year, a NITI Aayog report on the internationalisation of higher education noted that for every international student studying in India, around 25 Indians pursue higher education overseas. Seven institutions have been designated as lead institutions under the programme: IIT Delhi, IIT Bombay, IIT Madras, IIT Kanpur, IIT Hyderabad, IIT (ISM) Dhanbad and the Indian Institute of Science Bengaluru. According to the ministry, the initiative is intended to deepen international academic collaboration, boost research output and support India’s ambitions of becoming a globally competitive innovation hub. Applications from fellows and host institutions opened on June 1 and will remain open until July 15. The post India steps up bid to reverse brain drain with global researcher scheme appeared first on The PIE News .
11 Jun 2026
Bloomsbury Institute sponsor license suspended
News of the suspension emerged after the Home Office released an updated register of student sponsors on June 9, revealing London’s Bloomsbury Institute is no longer licensed to sponsor migrant students. The official suspension comes one week after the Institute told international partners and agents that it was pausing recruitment activities “until further notice” and would not be processing any new or existing applications for the upcoming October intake. It said in a statement that the Institute was engaged in a “regulatory review” by UKVI relating to “historic intakes of sponsored international students [reflecting] the wider evolution of the compliance landscape across the international student sponsor sector”. It said it was engaging “fully and constructively” with UKVI, reiterating the Institute’s commitment to satisfying “all regulatory obligations” in line with the new rules. “We have proactively implemented a number of substantive changes to our management structure and internal processes, and we are confident that these steps position the Institute well to meet the demands of the regulatory framework going forward.” The Home Office is yet to respond to The PIE News’s request for comment. The institution is the first provider to face disciplinary action from the Home Office since the new UKVI compliance metrics took effect on June 1, setting out stringent sponsorship rules for UK universities as part of the government’s crackdown on alleged study visa abuse. Under the new rules, institutions must maintain a visa refusal rate below 5%, an enrolment rate of at least 95% and a course completion rate of at least 90% to remain eligible to host international students. We have proactively implemented a number of substantive changes to our management structure and internal processes Bloomsbury Institute The Institute, a specialist higher education provider in business, law and accounting, said the review would not change the experience of enrolled students. “Their studies continue uninterrupted, the full range of support services remains in place, and our staff remain fully committed to their progress and academic success,” it said. “The interests of our students and our wider stakeholder community remain central to all that we do.” News of the suspension will likely fuel heightened tensions among UK universities, warned by the government last week that those hoping to “game the system” would face sponsor license action. The institute’s website confirms international applications for October 2026 are currently closed. The post Bloomsbury Institute sponsor license suspended appeared first on The PIE News .
11 Jun 2026
Cambridge Executive MBA programmes: Diverse perspectives, lasting impact
Former electronic engineering PhD now breaking barriers in cancer care with AstraZeneca Finance lawyer from London turned Director of Innovation and AI for a Big Law firm Desk strategy quant who became an award-winning Chief Strategy Officer Such are the transformative journeys you’ll often hear from Cambridge Executive MBA and the Global Executive MBA graduates. Offered by Cambridge Judge Business School, the programmes are ideal for senior executives who want to apply their knowledge and skills as they learn. Whether it’s the EMBA (16 weekends and three one-week blocks in Cambridge and one overseas) or the Global EMBA (six one-week blocks – two overseas – and 33 live online teaching half-days), both programmes empower experienced professionals to chart the next stage of their careers. It could be career progression and change or launching a new venture. As over 200 students and the following stories show, these EMBA programmes have what it takes to fire you up to achieve your goals. A lifelong learner and mother, a journey that led to advising the leaders shaping the future What’s it like to advise some of the world’s most ambitious leaders while raising kids and continuing to evolve as a professional and person? For Caroline Birkle, a trusted advisor to Silicon Valley CEOs, the Cambridge EMBA became a catalyst for insights that proved “profoundly valuable.” During weekends on campus, Birkle immersed herself in theory, examining leadership, organisational dynamics, and business performance through fresh perspectives. She revisited challenges she had encountered in boardrooms and executive leadership teams through new intellectual frameworks. Her peers on the course, leaders from technology, finance, manufacturing, and beyond, also interpreted common concepts in different ways, which opened “entirely new ways of thinking” about leadership, growth, and organisational effectiveness. Her classmates learned just as much from her. Before starting the EMBA, Birkle had built a distinguished career working alongside founders, CEOs, boards, and investors. She had served as a senior executive in a publicly listed company and was part of the turnaround team that ultimately took the company to the New York Stock Exchange. Over the previous decade, she developed deep expertise advising leadership teams while holding senior operational roles, giving her a unique perspective on both strategy and execution as well as being a mother and balancing the pressures of work and life. Yet important questions remained. “Having worked closely with CEOs, investors, and operators throughout my career, I was deeply curious about the different lenses through which each group evaluates performance, opportunity, and risk. While I had repeatedly observed these dynamics firsthand, I wanted more rigorous frameworks to understand and articulate them,” she says. The EMBA helped provide that framework, particularly through the second-year electives. The diversity of perspectives and the quality of debate “fundamentally changed” the way Birkle thought about leadership, company-building, and value creation. Developing the ability to objectively frame organisational behaviour and leadership dynamics alongside financial outcomes became a significant milestone. “The experience unlocked a new level of clarity around many of the situations I had encountered throughout my career,” says Birkle. After each intensive series of lectures, she found herself applying new ideas directly to her work. Since graduating in 2022 she has founded a successful advisory practice, partnering with Silicon Valley CEOs, founders, investors, and boards to help organisations navigate growth, transformation, and performance challenges through the lens of organisational dynamics and leadership effectiveness. Her goal: “sustained change and growth.” It is a phrase that applies just as well to her own journey. The seasoned engineer on “one of the most rewarding experiences” of his life The infrastructure and water sectors were changing quickly in the months leading up to 2024. Daniel Bonner, then an engineering consultant, was facing clients demanding something more of him, even more beyond his technical answers forged from over 20 years in industry. Instead, what they wanted were advisors who could help them navigate complexity, an increasingly muddled web of regulation, funding, climate risk, labour markets, technology, and now AI. How does Bonner enter the next stage of his career? He knew he must move from being known primarily as a functional expert to becoming a broader strategic business leader, with stronger capability in strategy, finance, markets, organisational leadership, and the wider forces shaping our industry. The question was how? Bonner would find the answer around 80 kilometres away. “For me, an EMBA was the right choice, and Cambridge offered the combination of academic depth, practical relevance, and global credibility I was looking for,” he says. Bonner’s instinct paid off – and almost immediately. Courses in strategy, risk management and scenario planning, negotiation, corporate finance, and marketing influenced how he led, managed, and made decision. Learning alongside senior professionals from finance, technology, consumer products, healthcare, and other sectors was “invaluable.” He gained a broader view of the importance of cultural awareness, diversity of thought, and global perspective in leadership as well. Bonner had expected all of this. But what surprised him was the extent of his personal transformation. The programme placed particular emphasis on management praxis, emotional intelligence, soft skills, leadership development, and understanding how people bring different experiences and perspectives into the room. “That has made me a more thoughtful, strategic, and effective leader,” he says. Without those residential weeks in Cambridge and live online learning that allowed him to plan around a demanding executive role while continuing to contribute fully at work, Bonner believes he would not be where he is today. He credits his current position as Vice President and Division Manager at global infrastructure leader AECOM to the deeper learning, stronger relationships, and connections to the wider Cambridge ecosystem. All of which, he believes, a fully online programme would not be able to replicate. “For me, the Global Executive MBA has delivered both immediate professional value and long-term transformation,” he says. “It has helped me become a more capable business leader, while giving me a broader and more strategic view of how I can contribute to my organisation, my clients, and the wider industry.” Follow Cambridge Judge Business School on Facebook , LinkedIn , Instagram , YouTube , Bluesky , and Threads
11 Jun 2026
Aalborg University: Health engineering education built on real problems
The programmes at Aalborg University’s Department of Health Science and Technology use problem-based learning to solve real-world health challenges.
11 Jun 2026
Finance, chemistry, and nuclear engineering: The education of top baseball athletes (2026)
Many professional athletes choose non-traditional higher education routes, preferring rigorous training over academic chops. Take Naomi Osaka. She was homeschooled to accommodate her training schedule, and skipped higher education. Virat Kohli, one of the greatest Indian cricketers of all time, completed only class 12 and forwent higher education to focus on cricket. But what about MLB players, especially the top and highest-paid baseball players? Well, the Study International team did a bit of digging and compiling to give you these results. Table of contents: The education of the top MLB players The education of the highest-paid MLB players Who are the MLB players who actually attended university? The education of the top MLB players View this post on Instagram A post shared by Victus Sports (@victussports) Bobby Witt Jr. (Kansas City Royals) Education: Colleyville Heritage High School Tarik Skubal (Detroit Tigers) Education: Kingman Academy of Learning Seattle University (Bachelor’s degree in Finance) View this post on Instagram A post shared by Paul Skenes (@paulskenes) Paul Skenes (Pittsburgh Pirates) Education: El Toro High School in California United States Air Force Academy (Bachelor’s in Chemistry) Louisiana State University (Bachelor’s in Chemistry — transferred for junior year) Cal Raleigh (Seattle Mariners) Education: Smoky Mountain High School Florida State University (Bachelor’s degree in Business Entrepreneurship) View this post on Instagram A post shared by Boston Red Sox (@redsox) Garret Crochet (Boston Red Sox) Education: Ocean Springs High School in Mississippi University of Tennessee (Bachelor’s degree in Nuclear Engineering) Julio Rodriguez (Seattle Mariners) Education: Unknown Julio Rodriguez left home at 14 for a baseball academy in Santiago de Los Caballeros after completing a bulk of his secondary education. At 16, he was signed by the Seattle Mariners. The education of the highest-paid MLB players View this post on Instagram A post shared by New York Mets (@mets) Juan Soto (New York Mets) Education: Dropped out of high school Nationals’ Dominican Academy (to learn English) Mike Trout Education: Lakeside Middle School Millville Senior High School View this post on Instagram A post shared by Shohei Ohtani | 大谷翔平 (@shoheiohtani) Shohei Ohtani (Los Angeles Dodgers) Education: Anetai Elementary School Mizusawa Minami Middle School Hanamaki Higashi High School Mookie Bett Education: John Overton High School View this post on Instagram A post shared by VLADIMIR GUERRERO JR (@vladdyjr27) Vladimir Guerrero (Toronto Blue Jays) Education: Limited formal education Aaron Judge (New York Yankees) Education: Linden High School California State University, Fresno Manny Machado Education: Brito Miami Private High School Vladimir Guerrero dropped out of school after fifth grade in the Dominican Republic to work in the fields to help support his family. Who are the MLB players who actually attended university? View this post on Instagram A post shared by Jordan Montgomery (@gumbynation34) Jordan Montgomery (Texas Rangers) Education: Sumter High School University of South Carolina Harrison Bader (San Francisco Giants) Education: Horace Mann School University of Florida (Bachelor’s degree in Telecommunications, Media and Society) View this post on Instagram A post shared by Chris Taylor (@ctaylor_3) Chris Taylor (Los Angeles Angels) Education: Great Neck Middle School Frank W. Cox High School University of Virginia Marcus Stroman (New York Yankees) Education: Patchogue-Medford High School Duke University (Bachelor’s degree in Sociology) View this post on Instagram A post shared by New York Mets (@mets) Sean Manaea (New York Mets) Education: South Central Junior-Senior High School Andrean High School Indiana State University (Bachelor’s degree in Management) Matt Carpenter (St. Louis Cardinals) Education: Lawrence E. Elkins High School Texas Christian University (Bachelor’s degree in Communications) View this post on Instagram A post shared by Tommy Edman (@tommyedman) Tommy Edman (Los Angeles Dodgers) Education: La Jolla Country Day School Stanford University (Bachelor’s degree in Mathematical and Computational Science) Cal Quantrill (Texas Rangers) Education: Trinity College School Stanford University (Bachelor’s degree in Management Science and Engineering) View this post on Instagram A post shared by Jonah Bride (@jbride11) Jonah Bride (Texas Rangers) Education: Owasso High School Neosho County Community College University of South Carolina (Bachelor’s degree in Sport and Entertainment Management) Kevin Gausman Education: Grandview High School Louisiana State University (Bachelor’s degree in Sports Administration, Leadership)
11 Jun 2026
3 real estate master’s degrees for future leaders
After a couple of years of falling values and a mostly slow-moving 2025, the global real estate market is showing signs of finding its footing again. PwC’s “Emerging Trends in Real Estate Global Outlook 2026” report found that many investors now see real estate as an attractive option compared with other asset classes. That renewed confidence is already showing in the numbers: deal volumes in the US jumped 22% to US$457.9 billion, while Asia recorded a growth of 3%, reaching US$187.8 billion. In the UK, global commercial real estate services and investment firm CB Richard Ellis (CBRE) also expects momentum to continue, forecasting stronger transaction activity and average prime property returns of 8.5% across sectors. While signs of recovery are encouraging, the future of real estate is far from fixed. Success in this industry increasingly depends on anticipating trends, and making informed decisions in uncertain environments. If you want to build that expertise, here are three global real estate master’s degrees to consider. MRE students learn the core theories behind real estate while exploring case studies to see how they are used. Source: The Chinese University of Hong Kong The Chinese University of Hong Kong Behind every real estate project are decisions around business, investment, operations, and long-term strategy. The Master of Science in Real Estate (MRE) at The Chinese University of Hong Kong’s (CUHK) Faculty of Business Administration is designed to reflect this broader, industry-focused perspective. As the first programme in Asia to integrate business education with real estate and hospitality asset management, the MRE equips students with the skills needed to navigate complex property markets and maximise asset value across sectors. Accredited by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), the programme will train you for careers across consulting, hospitality, investment, and real estate. Its curriculum spans a range of topics, from development planning, asset valuation, data and market analytics, and finance and investment, to leasing and marketing, ESG considerations and reporting, prop tech and corporate real estate strategy. Together, they help you build a more complete picture of how real estate decisions are made. Real estate is often described as a people business — and the programme reflects that. Complementing academic excellence is CUHK’s extensive industry network that creates opportunities for experiential learning and professional connections. Guest speakers regularly bring current industry trends into the classroom, while opportunities outside campus help you see those ideas in action. For example, more than 100 MRE students have taken part in the ULI Mentorship Programme , co-organised by Urban Land Institute Hong Kong and MRE, where they connected with practitioners in valuation, research, agency, and more. Students have also visited organisations like Cushman & Wakefield and toured SF REIT’s Asia Logistics Hub . Meanwhile, international field trips offer exposure to regional real estate developments. “Looking back, this programme played a big part in preparing me for my career,” shares graduate Eric Liang, currently a senior valuer at CBRE. “The courses were practical and relevant, and the professors were always supportive and willing to share real industry insights. Beyond the technical knowledge, I really appreciated the collaborative learning environment and the friendships built along the way.” The Bartlett School of Planning, one of Europe’s leading planning schools, offers practical, hands-on learning led by experts and industry professionals. Source: University College London University College London Beyond being the UK’s real estate capital, London is a global hub where investment, planning, and development intersect. That setting shapes the experience at UCL’s Bartlett School of Planning, where you can enrol in its International Real Estate and Planning MSc to prepare for careers in property analysis, valuation, investment, development, and urban policy. The school is part of The Bartlett, recognised as the world’s top faculty for Built Environment studies in the QS World University Rankings 2025 . That means learning from experts like Course Director Dr. Quilin Ke, whose work shapes thinking in real estate and urban planning. Their courses explore the systems that govern urban planning and the property market, including commercial real estate, residential market mechanisms, ownership frameworks, and planning policies — and how they differ across countries. Seeing the industry in action is another key part of the programme. Through field trips and site visits, you’ll experience different perspectives firsthand while building teamwork and problem-solving skills that carry on into your career. It’s this combination of academic and hands-on experience that has helped graduates move into organisations such as Colliers International, Savills, Cushman & Wakefield, Knight Frank, and Notting Hill Housing Association. You may even meet some of these employers during your studies through the school’s regular events and workshops . The MSRED programme helps you stay ahead of changes in the real estate industry, from shifting market conditions to new building standards, so you leave ready to shape cities. Source: Columbia University Columbia University For more than a century, Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP) has continued to evolve alongside the industries it serves. Once a department within Columbia’s School of Mines, the GSAPP today offers a growing range of specialised programmes, including the Master of Science in Real Estate Development (MSRED) . Whether you see yourself working in finance, development, investment, or asset management, this programme is designed to prepare you for leadership roles across the real estate industry. Learning begins with the fundamentals, including finance, market analytics, and construction technology, before you get to see those concepts come to life through office and site visits across New York City. The second semester builds on those foundations with underwriting, deal structuring, lease analysis, finance, and real estate law coursework. The final semester is all about refining your interests through electives like capital markets, private equity, advanced financial modelling, asset management, and AI-driven market analysis. You then apply everything you’ve learned in a capstone project developed alongside industry professionals and an optional internship. Throughout your time here, New York itself becomes an extension of the classroom, especially with industry professionals regularly bringing current perspectives and real-world experience into the MSRED classroom. *Some of the institutions featured in this article are commercial partners of Study International
11 Jun 2026
The fellowship opportunity that changed this jazz vocalist’s life
BeVisioneers fellow and startup founder Thabo Mngomezulu didn’t go to university abroad. Hailing from South Africa, Mngomezulu graduated from Central Johannesburg College with a music performance diploma. He would go on to perform as a jazz session vocalist for ten years, until a global catastrophe hit: the COVID-19 pandemic. Performance venues shut down, and he saw a decline in his career and income. “I just knew that I needed to do something other than music,” he says. That something would prove quite the career pivot. Mngomezulu found his niche in turning organic waste to biogas. Kasi Gas , a startup which he founded alongside his business partner, is on “a mission to create a cleaner, greener future for rural South African communities.” Coming from a small village himself, Mngomezulu knew firsthand that many rural communities in South African lacked sufficient energy for clean cooking — but he also knew that many living within those areas were ahead of the curve when it comes to organic farming. Producing biogas is not only safer and healthier for the environment, but the byproduct is also a nutrient-rich fertiliser which rehabilitates damaged soil for subsistence farmers. “I came across an article about biogas and that’s where it all started,” he says. “I started doing my research, making sure I do the relevant courses, because I wasn’t a business person. I knew nothing about entrepreneurship, so I had to do accelerators, cohorts, and things like that. Landing a fellowship opportunity as an adult Mngomezulu did not study abroad, but ten years into his career as a musician, starting from the ground up, he would discover global learning opportunities to make his pivot possible. He enrolled into a rigorous 12-week accelerator based in Silicon Valley to learn the ropes of business. He was later accepted into another accelerator with the Sustainability Institute to sharpen his expertise on biogas. After, he would get accepted into tech accelerator, practically by mistake — after all, his production had nothing to do with the tech industry. “It’s called Founders Institute, which was very interesting because that’s when I learned how to pitch a one-, three-, and five-minute pitch. I didn’t think I was going to survive,” he says. “They invite billionaires and businesspeople and experts to rate their pitch — and they cut them off. When we started, there were many of us, but when we graduated there were 12 of us. I think that, for me, validated my idea.” Still, Mngomezulu did not have enough resources on his hands to lift his cause off the ground. Despite presenting a clear business plan to local organisations in South Africa, many refused to fund something that remained an idea. They said he needed to create a prototype to prove his plan, but he didn’t have the capital to make that happen. That’s when the the Mercedes-Benz Fellowship, known as beVisioneers , entered his life. It supports individuals between the ages 16 to 28 who are looking to solve environmental problems in their local communities. Based in Hamburg, Germany, BeVisioneers is a multi-year fellowship that operates in more than 55 countries. It takes you through one-on-one mentoring and venture coaching, hybrid learning programmes, and fully funded travel opportunities, as well as financial support and scholarships awards. If you haven’t gotten the chance to study abroad, this fellowship is an excellent opportunity to build a global network of peers and professionals working towards the same goal. BeVisioneers validated Mngomezulu’s idea, and gave him funding to be able to prototype. “Once I was able to prototype and prove to the local organisations here in South Africa that this actually works, that’s when they started accepting my applications,” he says. Through the fellowship, Mngomezulu got to visit Stuttgart, Germany, for the Global Summit and connect with 250 other planet-positive entrepreneurs. “Engaging in meaningful conversations and sharing ideas in such a vibrant atmosphere left me inspired, energized, and deeply grateful for the support that made this possible,” he says. How music and entrepreneurship overlaps One might not expect Mngomezulu’s music and environmental work to overlap as much as it does. Naturally, the heart of the work itself could not be more different, but what remains the same is the need for a confident presentation. “When you’re used to performing for people, sometimes they just pull up faces and you’re like, ‘Am I really singing well?”, he says. That experience has equipped Mngomezulu with thick skin that allows him to face rejection. “It’s quite difficult when you get rejected for wanting to learn…I didn’t take that well at first.” The process of founding a startup is akin to singing in front of an unfamiliar crowd. Luckily for Mngomezulu, being a seasoned musician means already having a captivating stage presence — essential when pitching, networking, and speaking to investors. He wasn’t afraid of crowds, but more than that, he wasn’t afraid of failure . “I was never afraid to fail or say, ‘I don’t know.’ A lot of people walk into rooms and they want to pretend they know everything,” the BeVisioneers fellow says. “As entrepreneurs, we take pride in the stuff we know and understand better. I wanted to be the opposite: going to rooms to listen more. I wasn’t afraid of mistakes. They happen — it’s part of your learning journey.”
11 Jun 2026
From jazz musician to climate tech entrepreneur tackling energy poverty in South Africa
Five years ago, the world witnessed the spread of one of its deadliest viruses. Cities quietened, streets emptied, and 114 million people losing their jobs . Among those impacted were Thabo Mngomezulu from South Africa, who had been working as a jazz session vocalist for a decade. “It was very difficult, because at first I felt like I didn’t know what I was doing,” he says. “But I knew that I needed to do something other than music.” And that “something” turned out to be using biogas to combat energy poverty in rural South Africa. Mngomezulu’s startup, Kasi Gas, converts organic waste into biogas, which can be used for cooking and heating. Source: Thabo Mngomezulu Using biogas to solve energy poverty in rural South Africa Mngomezulu grew up in a village where he used to farm crops with his grandmother. “During the planting phase, I discovered there’s a lot of waste that we produce in the farm, and I started asking, ‘What can we do with it?” he says. Many global challenges existed before the pandemic, and many continue to persist in the years after. In South Africa, inequality manifests in several different forms, including “ skewed income distribution, unequal access to opportunities, and regional disparities .” One challenge many rural communities face is a lack of sufficient energy for cooking and heating. This is referred to as energy poverty. And this energy poverty affects a great many people across Sub-Saharan African countries, with 65% lacking access to electricity . Due to this, some opt for open-fire cookstoves, which increases the risk of pollution . About 700 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa rely on traditional biomass — primarily fuelwood, charcoal, and agricultural residues. But exposure to biomass smoke leads to the deaths of around 600,000 people every year. Through his startup, Kasi Gas, Mngomezulu and his team are producing a better alternative. Their rural revolution converts organic community waste (food scraps and farm waste) into affordable, clean biogas for cooking. So, where biomass is the raw, organic material (like wood, crops, or animal waste), biogas is the combustible gas (primarily methane) generated when bacteria break down that organic matter without oxygen. By capturing methane that would normally escape from landfills and manure lagoons, biogas actively reduces harmful greenhouse gas emissions. Plus, their work is somewhat of a win-win: they’re repurposing organic waste instead of sending it to landfills, and, on top of that, the byproduct of biogas production is a nutrient-rich fertiliser that helps rehabilitate dead soil used by small-scale and subsistence farmers. The startup itself is based in a rural South African community, targeting low-income areas across the country. “Mostly, there’s no waste management services, and so we harness those organic wastes from restaurants, schools, and a lot of households,” says Mngomezulu. “So we collect from all these points, then we take it to our site for processing, and then we deliver the gas and the fertiliser to our consumers.” Kasi Gas is based in a rural community in South Africa and targets other low-income areas lacking access to energy resources. Source: Thabo Mngomezulu Starting a social enterprise with zero experience Of course, actually turning an idea into a startup took lots of trial and error. Mngomezulu was lucky to have a business partner who’d been in the game for more than 20 years, so he wasn’t diving headfirst into a new venture completely blind. Still, there was much that was new to him. It was especially difficult for him to find investors to fund his startup, even with a clear-cut business plan in place and no prototype to prove his idea worked — and that put him in a bind. Yet, through time and rigorous search, Mngomezulu would encounter a key opportunity in his entrepreneurial journey: the Mercedes-Benz Fellowship, known as beVisioneers. beVisioneers is a global fellowship that equips young innovators (ages 16 to 28) with the training, mentorship, and resources to launch and scale planet-positive environmental projects. Funded by charitable donations from Mercedes-Benz and run by the non-profit The DO School Fellowships, it supports thousands of changemakers across 55 countries. And one of those changemakers is none other than Mngomezulu. “[It] was very crucial for me because they said, ‘You know what? It’s a great business.’ They validated it, checked my progress and then gave me the funding to prototype,” he says. “Once I was able to prototype and prove to the local organisations here in South Africa that this actually works, that’s when they started accepting my applications.” With that kind of validation and support, Mngomezulu has been able to further grow Kasi Gas. The startup was recently recognized as a finalist in the 2026 Global Cleantech Innovation Programme – South Africa, a major initiative by the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) and the Global Environment Facility. It’s incredible that all this started from a jazz musician who just wanted to make a change in his community. It goes to show that a little bit of faith, conviction, and an initiative such as beVisioneers that brings you international exposure can truly kickstart a meaningful startup. Today, Mngomezulu still takes bookings as a musician as a fun side hustle, but he’s made a complete pivot as an entrepreneur, tackling energy poverty and supporting crop farmers in rural South African communities at the same time. In the future, he plans to own at least three to five company plants, venturing into a micro-franchise across rural South Africa — but he’s taking those steps one day at a time.
11 Jun 2026
7 recommendations for music to study to (that are not AI-generated)
When you look up music to study to, there’s a chance that you will encounter a bunch of AI-generated songs. Truth is, there is no escaping the widespread use of AI art, including AI-generated songs. Recently, the #1 hit on US iTunes was a viral TikTok song called “Celebrate Me” by AI-generated persona IngaRose. The question this brings forth is simply: why? Why is it that people will always fall susceptible to AI art, be it in writing, in visuals, or in music, when there are millions of artists around the world working day and night to have their original pieces even just slightly noticed? AI music has even started to flood into instrumental YouTube playlists, and this phenomenon is not welcome. Now, it’s fine when AI is used as a resource. YouTube music has recently launched an AI playlist-generation feature to make it easier for users to find new music. What’s not okay to let artificiality replace genuine human thought and emotion. A few Spotify users pointed out that their Discover Weekly playlists would get filled out with four to five AI-generated songs. On Deezer, which is the only platform actually tagging AI music, nearly 75,000 AI-generated songs get uploaded everyday — making up 44% overall. Much like when trying to find music to study to, it all bows down to choice. You cannot stop this viral spread of AI-generated art, but you can stop engaging with it whenever it pops up. It’s easy to have blind spots, but it’s also easy to do a little search when a profile has zero human information and uploads too frequently. At the end of the day, you have the choice to celebrate real people making real music — and more specifically in this case, real music to study to. If a song’s credits are empty, then it is likely made by AI. Source: Mohammad Metri on Unsplash Now, finally — 7 recommendations on real music to study to Not everyone enjoys listening to music when they study. However, a 2020 study found that “ preferred background music can enhance task-focused attentional states on a low-demanding sustained task.” There’s even a term called “ The Mozart Effect ,” which is the belief that listening to his music somehow improves mental performance. Music has also been shown to have great impact on memory. A Harvard study states that music not only helps retrieve stored memories , but also “helps us lay down new ones.” It’s almost like perfume, in a way. You listen to specific tracks during a particular event or relay of information, and it becomes your main association. At the end of the day though, it boils down to your personal preference. So, here are our recommendations for music to study to across a spectrum of genres. If you need a little whimsy to make studying a little less boring, try a Ghibli soundtrack Featured: Howl’s Moving Castle Original Soundtrack by Joe Hisaishi on Apple Music If you want to feel a little high fashion before you hunch over your laptop all day, try some house Featured: “real deep house mix (no AI slop)” created by gesus8 on YouTube If you’re into some chill house music, another option for music to study to is YouTube DJ sets Featured: “CHILL MORNING DEEP HOUSE” by LILICAY on YouTube If you like rock music, but you can’t listen to lyrics, here’s “That Japanese Math Rock Sound” Featured: “ ‘ That Japanese Math Rock Sound’ Compilation – My Favourites Volº 1” created by a Whale and a Deer on YouTube If you’re rushing a deadline, these speed of these strings feels like something’s chasing you Featured: “when you wake up late and have to get to school in less than 30 minutes (a playlist)” created by nobody on YouTube If you’re an artist needing a ‘ little stimulation, this playlist by influenc er Lindsey Rem has you covered Featured: “ART-ING 2.0” created by lindseyrem on Spotify If you’re an avid gamer, then perhaps a soundtrack could offer some perfect nostalgia Featured: “Genshin Impact Lofi To Sleep or Study To 🌾 原神 [No Mid-Roll Ads]” created by gacha guild on YouTube
11 Jun 2026
Why future tax leaders choose the University of Auckland
Most people only think about taxation when they have to file a return. Bruce Liu started thinking about it much earlier. As a Bachelor of Commerce student at the University of Auckland , he grew curious about the systems that keep economies running. A year later, while working as a government auditor, that curiosity evolved into bigger questions: How does a country generate the revenue that funds public services? Why do governments approach taxation differently? And in a global economy, who decides where tax should be paid? The answers led him back to where his journey had begun. Today, Liu is completing the Master of Taxation Studies (MTaxS) at Auckland Law School – New Zealand’s largest law school, ranked 65th in the world by the 2026 QS Rankings by Subject. The decision has already paid off. Before graduation, he secured a role as a transfer pricing and international tax consultant at a Big Four firm. “My career settlement here is a fortune from a series of choices I have made in my life, including my decision to pursue the MTaxS at the University of Auckland,” Liu says. For Liu, pursuing a Master of Tax represents a turning point in his career. Source: University of Auckland Learn from people influencing global tax policy The MTaxS is New Zealand’s longest-running specialist postgraduate qualification in taxation and the only programme of its kind in the country. But what sets it apart is who teaches it. Students learn from leading tax barristers, senior industry practitioners, policymakers, and specialists who bring current challenges, debates, and developments into the classroom. Professor Craig Elliffe is one such practitioner. Specialising in taxation at the Faculty of Law, he was appointed to a chair in 2008 following 14 years as a tax partner at KPMG and nine years in the same role at Chapman Tripp. His research spans international tax, corporate tax, and tax avoidance – areas that feed directly into how he structures his teaching. Case studies drawn from real-world issues, some encountered in practice and others still unfolding, form a core part of both teaching and assessment. “The intention is for people to leave with both the intellectual framework and the practical skills needed to solve a wide range of problems,” he says. Matt Andrew brings a similarly grounded perspective. A global transfer pricing specialist, he spent 13 years as a Big Four Partner across four countries before working in the Secretariat in the Centre for Tax Policy and Administration at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). For several years now, Matt has supported Craig, teach several papers in the MTaxS while he completed his PhD in International Taxation at the University of Auckland. His experience shapes how he thinks about the subject. “Tax is one of the most powerful storytelling devices in global commerce,” he says. “From every multinational deal to every supply chain restructuring – they all have a tax story running underneath them.” This is why his classes often begin with questions rather than legislation. Why did a tech giant restructure through Singapore? What happened when two governments disputed where a digital service was taxed? Having presented to the OECD Inclusive Framework,DrFramework, Dr Andrew has a clear understanding of the conversations shaping the future of taxation, and that’s what he strives to bring into his classrooms. Professor Craig Elliffe is the Director of the MTaxS programme and a prolific author of tax publications in New Zealand. Source: University of Auckland One of the fastest growing areas in international taxation Transfer pricing governs how multinational companies price transactions between their own entities operating in different countries. Those decisions influence where profits are reported and where tax is paid, making transfer pricing one of the most scrutinised areas of international business. In response to growing concerns about profit shifting, governments worldwide have introduced major reforms through initiatives such as the OECD’s Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) project and the global minimum tax framework. “There are very few specialisations that open as many doors, in as many jurisdictions, as transfer pricing does right now,” Dr Andrew says. Liu saw that opportunity first-hand. “Dr Andrew taught me the practical skills of this profession,” he says. “This provided a strong foundation of knowledge for my work next year.” Designed for working professionals Tax is an international profession, and the people drawn to it often have international ambitions. That’s reflected in the MTaxS classroom. While Liu balanced his studies with work as a graduate and research teaching assistant on an international tax research project, others arrived with experience in law, accounting, government, and industry. Some were building careers. Others were changing direction. All brought different perspectives to the same discussions, supported by the programme’s flexible intensive course formats, full-time or part-time study options, and the choice of studying through coursework or a combination of coursework and research. Regardless, all routes lead to enriching careers, and 2010 graduate Dr. Karl Broemel has the trajectory to prove it. Originally from Germany, he chose the MTaxS because it offered both breadth and depth. The programme exposed him to practical tax issues while also giving him the opportunity to engage with research and academic thinking. During his business studies, Dr. Karl Broemel chose to specialise in taxation because he was interested in law, economics, and business. Source: University of Auckland After graduating, he returned to Germany and continued building on what he had started in Auckland. He went on to complete a PhD focused on international tax planning and is now a partner at Flick Gocke Schaumburg, one of Germany’s leading specialist tax advisory firms, advising private individuals, mid-sized businesses, and multinational corporations on complex domestic and cross-border tax matters. “The programme built a strong understanding of international tax principles and, more importantly, trained me to think comparatively and analytically – skills that are essential in any global tax environment,” he says. “Studying in New Zealand also broadened my perspective significantly. It was a great experience and one of the best decisions I made during my studies.” Learn more about Master of Taxation Studies . Follow Auckland Law School on Facebook , LinkedIn and X
11 Jun 2026
Cycle-friendly cities: A better way to travel for international students
Traffic is a nightmare pretty much everywhere, and trying to figure out a new public transport system can be seriously confusing. Walking might seem like an option, but it usually just takes too long. For students, especially those in a new country, getting around can feel like a hassle. That’s where cycle-friendly cities come in. Cycling is a super practical way to get around. It saves money since you’re not relying on buses, trains, or fuel all the time. Plus, it helps you move around the city, get to your classes, and stay active — all in one go. Quick tip for getting around cycle-friendly cities: grab a second-hand bike to save money, always lock it properly, and take some time to learn the local cycling rules — they’re not the same everywhere. Source: Jo Kassis via Pexels What makes a city bicycle-friendly? There are some countries and cities around the world that are better for bikes than others. More than lines on the road It’s not enough for a city to just sprinkle a few bike lanes around and call it a day. For cycle-friendly cities to really work, those lanes and paths need to form a proper network. That’s exactly what makes separated bike lanes so effective; they lower the barrier to entry and make cycling a more attractive option for everyday travel. A good network also includes off-street paths, often called greenways, that run through parks, along rivers, or even old railway lines. Bikes get the green light first If you’ve ever cycled through a busy intersection, you’ll know how stressful it can be. That’s exactly why cycle-friendly cities pay special attention to these spaces. One way they do this is with bicycle signals, which let cyclists move first. This creates a safer gap between bikes and cars. Designed with cyclists in mind The best cycle-friendly cities are places that either design their streets with everyone in mind from day one or have made an effort to redesign their infrastructure to better accommodate cyclists. To make this happen, local governments need to back it up with real investment. Dedicated funding for cycling infrastructure is key, and when combined with bike-to-work schemes or grants for local bike businesses, it helps build a more sustainable cycling culture. 8 top cycle-friendly cities in the world Utrecht, Netherlands Utrecht claims the top spot in the 2025 Copenhagenize Index. The city spends around €63 per person on cycling each year, but more importantly, it builds cycling into how the whole city is planned. There are over 100,000 bike parking spaces across the city, including the Utrecht Central Station, home to the world’s largest indoor bicycle parking garage. And as the city grows, it’s doubling down on that approach. Through its Mobiliteitsplan 2040, Utrecht continues to prioritise bikes over cars. What makes Kyoto one of Asia’s most cycle-friendly cities? On streets like Oike-dori, the cycleway is integrated into a broad pedestrian walkway and clearly marked. Although pedestrians share the space, cyclists are able to navigate around them with ease. Source: Subhash Suryawanshi via Pexels Kyoto, Japan If you spend a bit of time in Kyoto, it quickly becomes clear why it’s considered one of Asia’s most cycle-friendly cities. The streets are flat and easy to navigate. It also helps that you can find a bike to rent or buy almost anywhere. What’s interesting, though, is that unlike many Western cities, there aren’t many dedicated bike lanes. Instead, what makes cycling work here is the driving culture and strict regulations, like the ban on on-street parking and the rule that you can only own a car if you have a private parking space. Copenhagen, Denmark Rain, wind, and even snow doesn’t seem to stop anyone in Denmark from biking to work, running errands, or meeting friends. That’s because cycling here is part of the culture, shaped over more than a century since bicycles first appeared in the 1880s. That culture is passed down early. Most Danish children learn before starting school. Even newcomers are encouraged to learn as soon as they arrive. Of course, this level of cycling requires strong support. Denmark continues to invest in wide cycle paths, dedicated bridges, and expanding cycle superhighways to make cycling safer and more efficient. If you’re into cycling and sightseeing, Belgium is one of the cycle-friendly cities that has it all. Source: Fran Bambust via Pexels Ghent, Belgium It might sound like an exaggeration to say people in Ghent really really like bikes; but it’s not far off. Cycling is a huge part of everyday life there, and it’s something the city has been working on for decades. Since 1992, Ghent has built its cycling strategy on four key areas: infrastructure, parking, awareness, and governance. That approach has transformed the streets, replacing oversized roads with more people-friendly routes and adding bridges and underpasses to improve safety. It even introduced the country’s first bicycle street in 2011. Paris, France Driving in Paris , with lots of traffic, confusing streets, barely any parking, and strict speed limits, is kind of a nightmare. For a long time, there wasn’t much space left for cyclists either. Today, however, it is one of Europe’s top cycle-friendly cities thanks to its 2021–2026 cycling plan. The city has added 120 km of new cycle paths and made 52 km of temporary routes built during the pandemic permanent, building on its already large 1,000 km cycle network. View this post on Instagram A post shared by yungcheezy (@yungcheeezy) Xiamen, China In many Chinese cities, cars have taken over, making it harder — and riskier — for cyclists to get from one place to another. But things are starting to change. The rise of bike-sharing, growing frustration with traffic jams, and concerns about air pollution are pushing cities to rethink transport. Some places are even going big with their solutions. In 2017, Xiamen opened a 7.8 km-long bicycle skyway that passes through the city’s three financial centres and five residential neighbourhoods, five-metres above traffic and congestion on the ground. Seoul, South Korea The South Korean government has been making a real effort to promote cycling in Seoul . The city already has over 1,300 km of bike paths, and it’s planning to expand that to 1,483 km by 2026. A big part of that push is also the public bike-sharing system, Ddareungi. The bikes have been popular, especially in central areas, with 2,762 rental stations and around 45,000 bikes . Germany may be full of cycle-friendly cities, but don’t get too comfortable. Its bike-path networks are some of the most complex in the world. Source: Arooh via Pexels Münster, Germany Did you know that there is a city in Germany with more bikes than people? That’s Münster, with 500,000 bicycles for 280,000 people. It’s no surprise when you see how the city is designed. At the train station, you’ll not only find 3,500 parking spaces, but also a bike rental service, workshop service and a bike washing facility. The Old Town is completely encircled by the “Promenade”, a car-free ring just for cyclists (and pedestrians). It works like a bike highway, making it easy to reach places like universities, the Schloss, and the Aasee lake. In addition to which, various possibilities are being tested with the aim of encouraging people to go by bike. And the city keeps improving. Through its Vision Zero programme, Münster has added wider bike highways, bridges and tunnels for cyclists, slower car speeds, and clearer bike routes. There are the little touches too, such as the “Green Arrow” sign at crossroads with traffic lights make it easier for right turns and footrests at traffic lights for cyclists to stop and start at traffic lights. What universities are in the most cycle-friendly cities? If you love the idea of studying abroad in a country where you can cycle around freely, here is a list of the universities in those aforementioned cycle-friendly cities. City Country Top Universities Utrecht Netherlands Utrecht University Kyoto Japan Kyoto University Copenhagen Denmark University of Copenhagen, Technical University of Denmark (DTU), Copenhagen Business School (CBS) Ghent Belgium Ghent University Paris France PSL University, Institut Polytechnique de Paris, Université Paris-Saclay, Sorbonne University Xiamen China Xiamen University (XMU) Seoul South Korea Seoul National University, Yonsei University, Korea University Münster Germany University of Münster (Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität), FH Münster (University of Applied Sciences)
11 Jun 2026
Brazil: New surveys show strong, but price-sensitive, demand for study abroad
New survey results show strong interest in study abroad among Brazilian students and an optimistic outlook on the part of education agents. However, affordability issues – particularly exchange rate fluctuations – exert a major influence on whether Brazilian students will follow through on their study abroad plans. The Brazilian Educational & Language Travel Association (BELTA) administered two online surveys from February to April of 2026. Respondents to the first survey included over 2,200 students from all over Brazil who had already studied abroad or who were interested in doing so. The second survey included representatives in various positions at 74 education agencies. More than half of agents were owners of their business. Study abroad is common, especially for short programmes Most surveyed Brazilian students had already had at least one international education-related experience (85%). Top languages for study are English (68%), with Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German rounding out the top five. Nearly half of respondents studied abroad for less than three months (49%), while 26% were in exchanges of four–seven months and 24% were abroad for more than eight months. Duration of exchange programme, in months. About half of Brazilian student respondents choose to study abroad for three months or less. Source: BELTA Demand is strong, especially for language learning About 70% of students are interested in going abroad to study in the future. About 4 in 10 are planning to go in the first or second semester of 2027, while another 3 in 10 are aiming for 2028 or later. The preferred programme type for Brazilian students is language learning (46%), especially when a language course allows for temporary work (26%). About a quarter are interested in degree studies, with equal interest for postgraduate and undergraduate levels. How students research and organise study abroad The main channel on which students research study abroad options is Instagram (24%), with smaller percentages choosing YouTube, Facebook, or TikTok. In terms of in-person resources, students turn first to agents (15%) followed by education fairs (9%). When selecting an agency, students are first and foremost looking for someone who can help them find trustworthy study abroad experiences (22%). Students also value agents being easy to contact (16%), offering personalised service (13%), and being compatible with their budget (11%). Brazilian students’ reasons for choosing an education agency. Students are looking for confidence in their decision-making when they choose an agent. Source: BELTA Most agents place language students and high school students The top five programme types that surveyed agents place students into are language courses, summer/winter holiday courses for teens, high school exchanges, language courses with a work component, and shorter sub-degree programmes. Undergraduate and graduate programmes followed in sixth and seventh place, respectively. Agents said that most students aren’t just interested in studying: they want to travel, work, learn a new language, and experience a different culture. A primary goal of obtaining an international qualification or career is less common. Traditional destinations are still the most popular Agents put Canada, the US, the UK, Ireland, and Malta as the top five destinations for students, which makes sense given that English remains the preferred language to study. Spain is also popular among the significant segment of students looking to study in Spanish. The mood is optimistic Most surveyed agents had a good year in 2025. More than half of agents (53%) said they sent more students abroad than in 2024. Another 17% sent about the same number, while 30% sent fewer. The average growth in placements from 2024 to 2025 was 9.5%. Close to three-quarters (73%) of agents expect to send more students in 2026, a far greater proportion than those who expect the same or lower volume (17% and 10%, respectively). Agent expectations for 2026. More than 7 in 10 Brazilian agencies expect a better year in 2026 than in 2025. Source: BELTA But much will depend on certain factors Agents said that currency fluctuations can either deal a deal … or break it. A favourable final currency exchange rate was the most cited reason for a sale, and a currency devaluation was the most cited reason for a sale being made difficult or impossible. Affordability is overall a major issue for students. Alongside currency devaluation, a reduction in a student’s purchasing power, an exchange rate increase, an increase in the cost of living in a destination country, and an increase in flight costs are all among the top 10 factors that can persuade a student not to follow through on a placement. The main factors that hindered sales for Brazilian agents. Finance-related barriers represent five of the top ten reasons that students choose not to follow through with an agency placement. Source: BELTA The economic impact of the Middle East conflict on Brazil’s economy The Brazilian real has recently weakened against the US dollar amidst ongoing fighting between the US-Isreal against Iran-Hezbollah in the Middle East. If this trend persists, it will naturally be an issue for students considering study abroad in 2027. Other economic impacts of the widespread conflict on Brazil are both positive and negative. Brazil’s crude oil exports are increasing, especially to China and India, as the Strait of Hormuz remains a dangerous crossing for Gulf-based producers. Additional oil revenue is helping the Brazilian government to minimise the conflict’s impact on domestic food and fuel prices. However, Brazil also imports 25% of its diesel, and it is the world’s biggest importer of fertilizers. Most imports come from Gulf countries through the Strait of Hormuz. With diesel imports restricted, transportation and airfare costs are rising. With fertilizer imports limited, two of Brazil’s top exports – soybeans and meat – are in jeopardy. In Brazil – as in most other countries – the Strait’s reopening cannot come soon enough. For additional background, please see: “ Market snapshot: A guide to international student recruitment in Brazil ” “ Brazilian agents reporting strong growth this year with many exceeding pre-pandemic volumes ” The post Brazil: New surveys show strong, but price-sensitive, demand for study abroad appeared first on ICEF Monitor - Market intelligence for international student recruitment .
11 Jun 2026
No school, no football: How one rule changed 40,000 lives in India
When Ashok Rathod was a boy, he called football “a monsoon game.” Whenever the rainy season came, he and his friends forgot about cricket and played football instead. They lived in Ambedkar Nagar, a poor neighborhood in Mumbai where space was cramped and athletic fields nonexistent. So they played in the street with a plastic bottle or the rubber bladder of an old basketball. As Ashok grew, he stuck with football and school and eventually enrolled at university. His friends, meanwhile, got stuck in gangs or addicted to drugs and watched their professional prospects dwindle to working in the local fishmarket, as Ashok’s own parents had done. A light bulb went on: If Ashok could inspire children to embrace football, perhaps he could inspire them to stay in school, build resilience and leadership skills, and prepare them for the future. Fast forward 18 years and the OSCAR Foundation has transformed the lives of more than 40,000 children through football. They’ve opened digital learning centers across Mumbai, created championship calibre boys’ and girls’ teams, and won the support of FIFA and some of the biggest football clubs in the world. In the buildup to the World Cup, we sat down with Ashok to discuss his journey and what makes football such a powerful agent of change. What was your experience like with the very first group of children at the OSCAR Foundation? I identified 18 boys in my community. Twelve had already dropped out of school, and six were borderline. I asked them, “Would you like to play football?” They said, “No, we want to play cricket.” I didn’t have money to buy a cricket bat, so I convinced them to come to the park on Saturday and learn football. I didn’t expect any of them to show up, so I didn’t buy a football, but they all came and said, “How are you going to teach us football without a football?” So I borrowed 400 rupees from my father and with that, I bought our first football. The boys came back the next Saturday. I thought I would get them to play and then share my story, my friends’ stories, and they would understand and go back to school and that would be it. That one day turned into a lifetime. Ashok Rathod of the OSCAR Foundation What did those early sessions reveal about why football is a powerful way to make positive change? I was shocked. I thought these children would love playing football with each other. But quickly I discovered that they broke into groups and wouldn’t share the ball. I asked them, “Why don’t you pass the ball over there?” One group said, “Because they are Muslim, we don’t want to play with them.” The Muslim children said, “They are Hindu, I don’t want to play with them.” The third group was Bihari, a form of Hindu from North India. They said, “We don’t want to play with these local boys because they’re teasing us.” So I identified the leaders of each group and whenever there was a match, I always put those three players on the same team. And I made a simple rule: If they score, they have to celebrate. If they don’t celebrate, their goal will not count. And when they were celebrating, slowly, slowly they forgot their caste, their religion, and they became one team. That’s when I added another simple rule: No school, no football. Football is a sport that naturally teaches life skills like teamwork, resilience, and leadership. How do you structure your program to reinforce these skills? Each of our practices includes 20 to 30 minutes working on technique. That’s when we teach life skills. For example, many of our children face peer pressure. So we organize a small-sided game where there are two offensive players and three on defense. It’s challenging to score. So then we bring them together and ask why they weren’t scoring. They say, “Because we were less, and they were more.” So that means they’re putting more pressure on you, right? When you go back in the community, what kind of pressure do you face? We do similar lessons with addiction, child marriage, all the different challenges that our children face. We ask one team to score only with their heads and one team to play normal football. The team that can only score with their heads, they get frustrated and say, “Of course they will win because they have more options.” So then we talk about things that create more options in their lives, and they realize that if we study well, we will have more options to succeed. Football itself is a classroom. What resistance did you face building the girls’ program, and how did overcoming that resistance change the community? It took me six years to make one girls’ football team. The parents refused. They said, “What are you talking about? Why do girls need to learn football? They only need to learn household work because after the marriage, they will take care of the husband and family.” One day I got a call from a football academy hosting a girls’ football tournament. I don’t know what came into my mind. I said, “Yes, I have a girls’ team.” Of course I didn’t, but I figured in a week I could put one together. It was 11 o’clock when I received that call. They said, “Okay, bring your team at two o’clock today, you have a match!” Next to my house there was a girl washing plates. I said, “Sunita, you want to come for a picnic?” She said, “Yes, I would love to!” She got some of her friends, and I got permission from their parents to go on a picnic. When we got to the field, they said, “Where’s the picnic?” I told them, “We’re playing football!” They said, “We have never seen a football. You never taught us, and you are asking us to play football with the other team?” But they went out there, and they stood in front of the goal like a wall, every one of them. That game went to penalties. They lost, but they got the confidence and a uniform and they were very happy. Eight years later, our girls team went to Denmark and won the world’s second-largest youth tournament. The entire community was playing drums and celebrating their achievement. Politicians, the police, everyone came. That’s how the mindset has changed. The parents no longer stop the girls from playing. Forty-two percent of the children in our program are now girls, and all of them are in school. You became an Acumen Fellow in 2021 and Acumen Angel in 2024. How did that shape you as a leader, and where is the OSCAR Foundation headed now? During the Pandemic, we were doing everything we could to support the community. It was very difficult. The police stood outside and blocked our community in. No one could come out. There was no social distancing. Everyone was asking to wash hands regularly, but we got only limited water. So it was a very bad situation, and I was looking for some way to think more broadly and develop myself more as a leader, and meet other people and learn how they were creating more impact at scale. So Acumen came into my life at the right time. I learned so much from my cohort and began to see a broader picture. I got clarity. I was able to reflect on myself and what I wanted to accomplish. My mind became fresh again. After the Fellowship and with the help of the Angels award, I scaled to three more states and was able to come up with a customized in-school program. So now we can train teachers and community leaders to replicate this model across India. Our goal is to reach half a million children in the next four years. We want children in school to be more physically active and for teachers to realize that this is real education. Just like Ashok changed the game for thousands of children in India, we’re trying to change the game for entrepreneurs who are helping low-income communities adapt to climate change. Support our campaign! Love the World Game. Love the World More. Share Share on Facebook Share on X/Twitter Share on LinkedIn Share on Pintrest Share via Email More from our Knowledge Hub Stories All Regions Infrastructure is destiny TED2026 revealed the extremes of this moment and how we might navigate to a better world — if we move together. Read more Stories Building from Nothing: How refugee-led enterprises are turning exclusion into opportunity Read more Investment Announcements Acumen invests in ScrapUncle to bring transparency and dignity to India’s recycling economy Read more Investment Announcements Acumen invests in Pullus to expand fair poultry markets for smallholder farmers in Nigeria Read more Read more The post No school, no football: How one rule changed 40,000 lives in India appeared first on Acumen .
10 Jun 2026
From AI users to AI builders: why innovation needs a bigger stage
Generative AI has moved from novelty to normality at remarkable speed. In UK higher education, it is already part of everyday student life: a 2026 HEPI/Kortext survey found that 95% of full-time undergraduates now use generative AI in some form. But access is no longer the real differentiator. The more important question for international education and industry is this: who can use AI to identify a meaningful problem, build a responsible solution and turn an idea into something that works in the real world? Access is no longer enough For students, AI is quickly becoming a baseline capability. It can help them research, summarise, code, translate, visualise and test ideas faster than ever before. That creates opportunity, but it also changes the meaning of digital readiness. If almost everyone can access powerful AI tools, then the real advantage lies in judgement: knowing what problem is worth solving, what data can be trusted, what solution is responsible, and how an idea should be communicated to others. This is where education has to move beyond tool use. AI literacy matters, but it is only the starting point. The next stage is helping learners become builders: people who can combine technical curiosity with creativity, ethics, teamwork and practical problem-solving. Employers need builders Industry is moving in the same direction. The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025 estimates that nearly 40% of workers’ core skills will change by 2030, while 63% of employers identify skills gaps as a major barrier to business transformation. AI, big data and technological literacy are among the fastest-growing areas of demand. But the report also makes clear that human capabilities such as analytical thinking, creativity, resilience and collaboration remain essential. This combination is important. The future AI economy will not be built by technical knowledge alone. It will depend on people who can understand users, work across disciplines, test commercial assumptions and turn emerging technologies into useful, responsible and market-aware solutions. For universities, schools and international education providers, this creates a clear challenge: how do we help students and emerging founders move from using AI to building with it? Why the UK matters The UK offers a strong environment for this transition. Government analysis shows that the UK AI ecosystem now includes more than 5,800 AI companies, an 85% increase over two years. AI-related employment reached more than 86,000 in 2024, while sector revenue rose to £23.9 billion. This matters because AI talent needs more than inspiration. It needs exposure to real industries, experienced mentors, commercial feedback, research networks and opportunities to test ideas in an international setting. For students, researchers and early-stage founders, the UK brings together several important advantages: a globally recognised education system, a fast-growing AI sector, strong research capability, international capital networks and a diverse community of young innovators. But many promising AI ideas still get stuck too early. A school student may have a thoughtful solution to a social problem but lack a structured pathway to develop it. A university team may have a prototype but need sharper commercial feedback. An adult founder may have a business plan or demo but need access to mentors, investors, industry partners and international visibility. From ideas to ventures Photo: Leading Futures That is the gap the AI UK Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition aims to address. Positioned at the intersection of education, entrepreneurship and industry, the competition is designed as more than a showcase. It is a cross-border innovation platform connecting AI talent, academic insight, business expertise and industry resources across the UK-China ecosystem. The competition brings together younger students beginning their AI innovation journey and adult teams working on more developed ventures, creating a bridge from early talent to emerging startups. The youth group, Future Tech Stars, supports students who are learning to define problems, apply AI creatively and communicate their ideas with confidence. The adult group is built for university teams, researchers, entrepreneurs and early-stage AI startups looking to refine their business models, strengthen their pitches and connect with wider industry resources. The strongest innovation ecosystems give people room to start early, receive expert challenge, fail intelligently and keep improving This dual structure is important. AI talent does not appear fully formed at graduation, nor does entrepreneurship begin only once a company is incorporated. The strongest innovation ecosystems give people room to start early, receive expert challenge, fail intelligently and keep improving. For participants, the value is not only in competition outcomes. It is in the process: expert review, mentoring, pitch development, exposure to UK-China innovation networks and access to a broader community of educators, founders, technologists, investors and industry partners. AI is already easy to access. What remains difficult is building something useful, responsible and scalable with it. The AI UK Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition is looking for exactly that: young innovators, university teams, researchers, founders and early-stage AI ventures ready to move beyond ideas and test their solutions on a bigger stage. Teams interested in participating can apply by sending their business plan and team introduction to info@leadingfuture.co.uk . The post From AI users to AI builders: why innovation needs a bigger stage appeared first on The PIE News .
10 Jun 2026
Trump’s $100,000 H-1B fee ruled unlawful
A federal judge has ruled Donald Trump’s $100,000 H-1B visa fee unlawful, handing a legal victory to 20 states led by California, suing the President on grounds that the charge damaged their ability to hire workers at public institutions. US district judge Leo Sorokin said the President had “no power or delegated authority to impose a tax on H-1B petitions”, concluding the fee violated the separation of powers and throwing the policy out in its entirety. The decision has been hailed a victory for the democratic state attorneys general that filed the suit , as well as tech companies and other US businesses that use the visa to hire skilled international workers and who were rocked by Trump’s dramatic fee hike in September 2025. Though the administration subsequently said international students transitioning from F-1 to H-1B visas would be exempt from the fee, the eyewatering cost – over 20 times what employers previously paid – has burdened companies, colleges, schools and hospitals with huge additional hiring fees. The Obama appointee’s 42-page decision ruled in favour of the plaintiffs on all four counts, concluding the fee was operating as an “unlawful tax” implemented without congressional approval. While marking the most recent setback for the administration’s economic agenda as it seeks to overhaul work and immigration pathways to the US, much remains uncertain and the White House has said it will appeal the decision. “President Trump has clear legal authority to restrict entry of any class of aliens he determines is not in America’s best interests, and that is exactly what he did,” Taylor Rogers, White House spokesperson, told The PIE News. “The H-1B program has been abused for decades, and President Trump finally took action to fix it.” “A federal judge in Washington already upheld a nearly identical order, and the administration is confident this order will be reversed on appeal,” she said. Rogers’ comments refer to a separate court in Washington DC upholding the fee in January this year, as the judge rejected arguments brought by the Chamber of Commerce that the proclamation exceeded Trump’s statutory authority. “We continue to surf the waves of what’s coming our way,” said Fragomen immigration partner Eddie Raleigh, highlighting the difficult decision now facing employers about whether to continue paying the fee based on so many unknowns. Raleigh explained the fee could come back if the district court, the first circuit, or the supreme court suspends the Massachusetts decision while the appeal is pending, or if the decision is later reversed following the appeal. The administration is confident this order will be reversed on appeal Taylor Rogers, The White House He said the DC ruling made an appeal more likely, giving “the government a ready argument that another federal judge looked at the same fee and upheld it”. At the same time, it is also possible that decision will be overturned on appeal – particularly since the recent tariff decision in which the supreme court rejected arguments of presidential authority, which was relied upon in judge Sorokin’s ruling. What’s more, Raleigh said the decision gave employers who paid the $100,000 fee a strong argument that the money was collected under an unlawful policy, but the court did not order refunds or create a process for granting them, leaving the issue “unresolved”. “For now, employers that paid should preserve all payment records, and employers deciding whether to pay should assume that any refund path may be slow and contested,” he advised. The H-1B program was established in its current form in 1990 and enables US employers to temporarily hire international workers in “specialty occupations” from healthcare to computer science and financial analysis, with California’s tech industry particularly reliant on the stream. H-1B visas are capped annually at 85,000 with 20,000 reserved for individuals with advanced degrees, though colleges, universities and non-profits are exempt from the cap. As this year’s H-1B cap filing deadline fast approaches at the end of the month, experts predict many employers will continue paying the fee rather than risk complications and missing the deadline. India, America’s largest source of international students, is also the top country of origin for H-1B visa holders, with Indian nationals making up 73% of new H-1B approvals in 2023. Amid the uncertainty over the fee, US homeland security secretary Markwayne Mullin said last week at least 200,000 people have opted to pay the $100,000 H-1B fee to ensure faster processing, while roughly 80,000 applicants seeking an exemption are set to wait in processing queues nearly eight months long. Trump’s overhaul of the visa route has also included replacing the random lottery system with a weighted selection processing favouring higher wage earners. A third court challenge, Global Nurse Force v. Trump, is still ongoing in the courts, with the plaintiffs arguing the $100,000 H-1B fee “threatens to choke off the lawful nurse-recruitment pipeline US hospitals depend on”. Commenting on the policy environment and its trickle-down impact on international students coming the US, International House Berkeley executive director Shaun Carver said global competition for talent was “far more intense than many Americans realise”. “Policies that create uncertainty around visas or long-term opportunity don’t happen in a vacuum. Talented people increasingly have other options, and we’re seeing that play out across the pipeline – from education through to career choice.” The post Trump’s $100,000 H-1B fee ruled unlawful appeared first on The PIE News .
10 Jun 2026
Warwick and Reading rebrand foundation and language provision as Global Academies
While the name change was developed independently at each university, leaders at both institutions told The PIE News they arrived at remarkably similar conclusions – traditional labels such as “language institute”, “foundation studies” and even “international” no longer reflected the breadth of their work. At Warwick, the former Warwick Foundation Studies department was supporting students through foundation pathways, pre-sessional and in-sessional English provision, short courses and academic skills development. “It did not express the full breadth of what we do, and it confused people when we talked to them,” said Nina Anne Lawrence, director and head of department at Warwick Global Academy. “We are not just international student-focused. We do some home student activities as well, so I didn’t want the word ‘international’ that was exclusive and didn’t include the home students.” “Global seemed like a really good word because we’re all global citizens,” Lawrence explained. “Academy gave us the prestige that helps people understand the importance and significance of the activity that we do.” At the University of Reading, a similar process led to the retirement of the institution’s International Study and Language Institute (ISLI), which has become the University of Reading Global Academy. “It was quite hard for people to actually understand what that means and what we do and what our purpose is,” said Elizabeth Allen, the university’s associate pro-vice-chancellor for internationalisation. “The provisions we offer – foundation, pre-sessional, short courses and academic English – are global across the world rather than having just an international angle,” said Allen, who added that Reading’s decision to change the name was shaped by market research and consultation with students and colleagues. The provisions we offer – foundation, pre-sessional, short courses and academic English – are global across the world rather than having just an international angle Elizabeth Allen, University of Reading For both universities, however, the rebrand was about more than marketing. Lawrence said Warwick used the launch to raise awareness internally about the specialist expertise involved in supporting students’ academic development. She argued that international students are often required to develop new approaches to learning and independent study alongside adapting to a new academic culture. “UK students have been in education for years learning how to be independent learners. We’re working with students from complex education systems where the focus is not always independent learning. So they need to learn that skill.” Allen similarly emphasised that the role of these units now extends well beyond preparing students for entry. At Reading, support continues throughout students’ academic journeys, including through academic English provision delivered across campuses and transnational education partnerships. The parallel rebrands also highlight a wider challenge facing the sector – there is still no common model for where these functions sit within universities. “I think, in the sector, it’s interesting we’re both now Global Academies,” said Allen. “But if you look at where we sit, our equivalent in other universities might be a department, a school, part of a faculty or even professional services.” The post Warwick and Reading rebrand foundation and language provision as Global Academies appeared first on The PIE News .
10 Jun 2026
Tennessee Tech’s online MA in Exercise Science: The ultimate guide, as told by students
Tennessee Tech ‘s 100% online Master of Arts in Exercise Science prepares students to educate groups and individuals about the importance and benefits of healthy lifestyles. It is offered by the College of Education and Human Sciences and was ranked in the top 25 online master’s programmes in Physical Education nationally in 2023. Practical skills are emphasised, as well as specialisations. The programme’s concentrations include: Adapted Physical Education Elementary & Middle School K-12 Licensure Lifetime Wellness, Physical Education Sport Management To give you a fuller picture of what it’s like to be part of this MA, Itohan Ogbomo, a Sport Management student, and Bobby “Tre” Montgomery, a K-12 Licensure student, share their experiences below. Tennessee Tech’s Exercise Science programmes provide practical training for current and future professionals. Source: Tennessee Tech Itohan Ogbomo (Sport Management) What is the typical class experience like in an online master’s in exercise science? Classes are very discussion-based and application-focused. Most courses involve a combination of readings, research assignments, presentations, discussions, and projects rather than just exams alone. I would say the typical master’s student experience centres on online communication with professors, alongside asynchronous coursework and exams. Research opportunities are available through the Research Methods and Assessment in Physical Education courses, and 120 internship hours are required for course credit, with additional opportunities available beyond that. How supportive is the faculty? The faculty is extremely helpful and supportive. They genuinely want to see their students succeed and will help guide students in the right direction when they need help. What equipment do exercise science students get access to? As an online student, my experience may differ from that of traditional students. However, as a graduate assistant, I have access to several types of equipment, labs, and technologies within the department. For example, I had access to Nord boards, force plates, BODPOD, VO2 max machine, skinfold callipers, Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis (BIA) measurement, sit and reach boxes, vertical jump mat, free weights and other lifting equipment. Bobby “Tre” Montgomery (K-12 Licensure concentration) Does the programme focus more on performance, health, or research? The programme does a strong job balancing all three areas. The research courses helped me become much more confident with literature reviews, research methods, critical thinking, and APA formatting. Health and performance are also major themes throughout the concentration courses. A lot of what we learned focused on lifelong healthy habits, physical activity, exercise programming, and ways to improve quality of life for different populations. Are there any hands-on experience in an online exercise science programme? As part of our field experience course, we had the opportunity to go into schools and teach. That taught me a lot about communication, classroom management, and applying what we learned in real situations. It challenged me in a good way and helped build my confidence. In addition to that course, I also gained valuable experience working with college students through my graduate assistantship, which helped me continue developing as an educator and leader. Tennessee Tech prepares practical, career-ready graduates across diverse disciplines for a technology-driven world, supported by a strong, student-focused community. Source: Tennessee Tech Does an exercise science master’s help with CSCS or ACSM certification prep? Yes, I believe the programme provides a strong academic foundation for certifications such as Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS), American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), and other fitness or strength-and-conditioning certifications. Many of the topics covered throughout the coursework directly relate to exercise physiology, training principles, programme design, and research concepts that are important for certification exams and professional practice. What jobs do exercise science graduates typically get? Graduates go into a wide variety of careers, including teaching, coaching, personal training, strength and conditioning, corporate wellness, fitness management, and other health-related professions. One of the great things about exercise science is how versatile the degree can be. The degree provides knowledge and skills that can apply to many populations and settings, which creates opportunities well beyond traditional athletics. Personally, I plan to continue pursuing opportunities in education, coaching, and physical activity-related fields. Long term, I would also love to continue growing professionally and possibly work in higher education one day. Is an exercise science master’s worth it for a career change? Absolutely. The programme provides a strong foundation in exercise science, research, and practical application, and exposes students to a range of career paths while building both knowledge and professional skills. Whether someone is interested in fitness, wellness, coaching, education, or healthcare, the degree offers a versatile background that can open multiple opportunities. Learn more about the online MA in Exercise Science programme at Tennessee Tech. Follow Tennessee Tech on Facebook , Instagram , and YouTube
10 Jun 2026
Southern Cross offers TAFE graduates fast-track route into university degrees
The initiative will provide up to one year of credit across eight degrees spanning tourism, hotel management, science, IT, business, nursing and education, potentially saving students up to A$17,000 in tuition costs. Announcing the move, education minister Jason Clare said it was an example of “breaking down the artificial barrier between TAFE and university”. “This will take one year off their degree and save up to $17,000,” Clare said. “It will make it quicker, cheaper and easier to get the skills and qualifications people need. And that Australia needs.” Unlike many existing articulation agreements, Southern Cross said the new model recognises eligible qualifications from TAFEs in New South Wales and Queensland, as well as equivalent diplomas from registered training organisations and other TAFE providers across Australia. Southern Cross vice-chancellor Tyrone Carlin said the initiative reflects growing efforts to better connect vocational and higher education. TAFE and university education have too often been treated as separate pathways, when in reality many students move between both as they build their skills, confidence and careers Tyrone Carlin, Southern Cross University “TAFE and university education have too often been treated as separate pathways, when in reality many students move between both as they build their skills, confidence and careers,” said Carlin. “These pathways are about giving students a clearer, more efficient route into higher education.” The university said the first phase includes 20 pathways into eight undergraduate degrees and builds on more than 300 existing TAFE and VET credit arrangements already offered by the institution. Southern Cross University confirmed to The PIE News that the pathways program will also be available to international students, who can apply through the university’s international admissions process. Depending on the course, students may be able to study online, offshore or in Australia. The announcement comes as the Australian Tertiary Education Commission (ATEC) develops a national credit recognition framework designed to improve movement between vocational and higher education sectors. Clare said he wants more universities to adopt similar arrangements and indicated that institutions offering stronger recognition of TAFE qualifications could receive additional student places in future. ATEC chief commissioner Barney Glover described the Southern Cross initiative as “a powerful example of tertiary harmonisation in action”, adding that stronger links between VET and higher education could help learners graduate faster while reducing the overall cost of a degree. Established following recommendations of the Universities Accord, ATEC is intended to serve as Australia’s new tertiary education steward, overseeing long-term planning, funding advice and reforms aimed at creating a more integrated post-school education system. The post Southern Cross offers TAFE graduates fast-track route into university degrees appeared first on The PIE News .
10 Jun 2026
Explore the end of static architecture at SCI-Arc
Green lasers cut through fog as AI-generated video projections flicker across the walls of Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc). Inside the school’s Spring Show 2025 — themed Jungle — students, architects, artists, coders, designers, and critics move through an environment that feels less like a conventional exhibition and more like a living ecosystem. Experimental films pulse beside robotic fabrication prototypes. Digital worlds bleed into physical installations. Music, machine-generated visuals, speculative environments, and architecture collide under a haze of techno and artificial light. Now in its 19 th year, the annual exhibition transformed SCI-Arc into what the school described as “a hypnotic rainforest of raw potential” — a place where “new species of form and thought collide.” The metaphor is quite literal. Across architecture itself, the boundaries that once separated buildings from media, software, interfaces, gaming, robotics, and machine intelligence are dissolving. Designing static structures is out. Designing systems, behaviors, interactions, immersive worlds, and responsive environments is in. At SCI-Arc, that shift is reflected in the name of one of its graduate programs. The Master of Science in Architectural Technologies is now the Master of Science in Architectural Intelligence: AI, Platforms, Automation , which focuses on the application of emerging technologies within design and the built environment. Across three semesters, students work through machine learning systems, robotic fabrication, XR environments, AI-assisted production workflows, hardware sensing technologies, generative modelling, and immersive media. They cover all this ground while developing applied research projects intended for real-world implementation. But according to M. Casey Rehm — Architectural Intelligence Coordinator and partner at Studio MMR — the main focus is on preparing students to navigate our changing world. “The vision is to train a generation of students who are able to operate with agency in this incredibly complex and evolving time, where artificial intelligence and platform thinking are transforming everything from our culture to potential future careers to politics and economics,” he says. Throughout, students interface directly with industry leaders working across architecture, AI, immersive technology, media, fabrication, and computational design. Recent collaborators have included voices from Google, Amazon AWS, Snap, Runway ML, MVRDV, and experimental design studios operating at the intersection of technology and spatial practice. For some, those worlds no longer feel adjacent to architecture after graduating. They become architecture. Astha Kapila arrived at SCI-Arc from New Delhi in 2021 to “move past the passive nature of the physical world.” Today, she works in Los Angeles as an XR UX Engineer at Google. In many ways, her trajectory mirrors the larger shift SCI-Arc’s newly renamed Architectural Intelligence program seeks to capture: the expanding role of architects within increasingly intelligent, interconnected, and technologically mediated environments. Kapila joined when it was still referred to as the Master of Science in Architectural Technologies, yet even then, SCI-Arc’s studios already hinted at the direction architecture itself was moving toward. SCI-Arc, Kapila says, encouraged experimentation at every level. “The atmosphere created an opportunity for both theoretical exploration and practical implementation. It enabled me to ‘fail fast,’ test many different types of technologies –– ranging from game engines like Unity to industrial robotics,” explains the graduate. “It’s a place that views failure as a pathway to innovation.” Several experiments reshaped the way she approached design. One project, Planet Garden , used Unreal Engine and C++ to create a world-building simulation investigating self-sustaining robotic systems. Another, Automation Design Studio , explored automated design workflows through drone LIDAR surveys, neural networks, and script-based generative modelling techniques. Her thesis project, XRealms , investigated the potential for automated aesthetic decision-making through generative AI, eventually evolving into a live VR exhibition. The people Kapila met along the way took her training further. “They were my greatest sources of inspiration,” she says. “The program had a true ‘melting pot’ quality to its participants’ individual interests.” While Kapila intensely researched augmented reality, other students explored the connections between technology and design, ranging from tech-integrated fashion and ceramics to furniture design and AI-driven automation. “This showed me the potential power of technology when it is used across disciplines,” she says. An interdisciplinary mindset would ultimately reshape Kapila’s career trajectory entirely. Her role at Google spans spatial computing, machine vision, intelligent interaction systems, and wearable technology — a trajectory she traces directly back to the technical and conceptual foundations she built at SCI-Arc. “It shifted my focus,” she says. “Studying Architectural Technologies at SCI-Arc completely revamped my career from a traditional architectural designer in India to a future tech leader at the forefront of spatial computing.” Follow SCI-Arc on YouTube , Instagram , Facebook , and X
10 Jun 2026
India’s largest listed edtech reverses course on student lending
India’s largest listed edtech company, PhysicsWallah (PW), has abandoned plans to directly lend to students through its finance subsidiary and will instead partner with regulated lenders, marking a significant shift in its student financing strategy. The development comes just days after the company announced an investment of approximately Rs 120 crore (approximately GDP £10.3 million) into FinZ Finance, its wholly owned subsidiary that received a non-banking financial company (NBFC) licence from the Reserve Bank of India in September 2025 and began operations earlier this year. The company has now partnered with multiple regulated non-bank lenders to support student financing. “PhysicsWallah wishes to inform the exchanges that it is restructuring its lending strategy and has tied up with multiple leading regulated third-party NBFCs to enable student lending needs,” the company said. Our lending business is best left to regulated third-party NBFCs who have created robust underwriting capabilities Prateek Maheshwari, PhysicsWallah Under the revised model, PW will continue to function as a technology platform, connecting students with a curated network of lending partners based on their learning journey and academic outcomes. The company said the approach would materially reduce balance-sheet and credit-related risks. Explaining the decision, co-founder Prateek Maheshwari said the company had received feedback that its strengths lie in education and community building rather than lending. “We received feedback from our partners that our core strength lies in building communities and our online business. Our lending business is best left to regulated third-party NBFCs who have created robust underwriting capabilities,” said Maheshwari. “We truly believe that prudent capital allocation and shareholder value remains our foremost priority and, in light of the feedback received from our partners, we have exercised our responsibility to revisit this decision and enable student lending through regulated third-party NBFCs.” The company added that the future direction of FinZ Finance will be decided at a later date, subject to board and regulatory approvals. Investors appeared to welcome the move, with PhysicsWallah’s shares rising by as much as 17% following the announcement. The decision marks a notable shift for a company that has positioned itself as one of India’s fastest-growing education businesses. In November 2025, PhysicsWallah became India’s first pure-play edtech unicorn to go public , seeking a valuation of around USD $3.6 billion and distinguishing itself from rivals that struggled amid a broader downturn in the sector. PhysicsWallah’s stock market debut came as some of India’s largest edtech companies faced mounting challenges. Byju’s remains embroiled in insolvency proceedings and legal disputes, while rivals including Unacademy have grappled with slowing growth and restructuring, with the company now awaiting approval for a proposed merger with upGrad. The latest move comes as investor scrutiny of edtech business models has intensified, particularly around profitability, risk exposure and long-term sustainability. PhysicsWallah also reported strong financial results for the quarter ended March 2026, with revenue increasing 51% year-on-year to Rs 919 crore (GDP £78.5 million), while losses narrowed by 76% to Rs 69 crore (£5.9 million). At the time of its IPO, co-founder Alakh Pandey said disciplined growth would remain a priority as the company expanded its physical learning centre network across India. “I want this company to be run with discipline, to grow responsibly, and to make it public in a way that benefits everyone. We are in a hyper-growth phase, and as we expand, we don’t want to slow down or fail to deliver,” Pandey said. The post India’s largest listed edtech reverses course on student lending appeared first on The PIE News .
10 Jun 2026
Designing what’s next: Materials Science and Engineering at the National University of Singapore
The National University of Singapore’s master's and PhD degrees can prepare you for fast-moving, high-impact industries.
10 Jun 2026
Canada risks losing ground as rivals invest in higher education
The Centre for World University Rankings (CWUR) released its 2026 edition last week, which saw 37 of Canada’s 38 ranked universities slip compared to 2025, while the University of Toronto maintained its position as Canada’s top institution at number 23. While some experts have disputed the rankings’ credibility, they said the real story lies in the financial challenges facing Canadian universities, driven in part by dramatic declines in international student numbers since the 2024 study permit caps . “Canada has too often treated universities as a provincial budget issue or, more recently, as part of an immigration-management problem,” said LCI Education senior international officer Isaac Garcia-Sitton, alluding to broader financial headwinds facing the sector. “Canada is not slipping because its universities stopped being good. It is slipping because other countries are treating higher education as a national strategy,” he added, calling on Ottawa to take a differentiated approach to the sector and address years of underfunding. “The broader story is that global competition is accelerating… other countries are investing fast, planning more deliberately and treating higher education as a strategic national asset,” said Garcia-Sitton. “The concern is not that some universities slipped a few places in one ranking. The concern is that Canada may be losing relative ground while other systems are moving faster.” Of the CWUR’s top 100 institutions, nearly half (47) are found in the US, followed by China (nine) which saw its universities rise in the rankings, and the UK (eight) marking the third most represented country. Amid national headlines about Canada’s decline, the number of Canadian institutions represented in the top 100 stayed the same as last year, and some experts are sceptical of the rankings, which they say are disproportionately influenced by alumni employability metrics. While the University of Toronto maintained its 2025 position, McGill University, the University of British Columbia and the University of Alberta all fell by one place but remained in the top 100, ranking 28, 49 and 82 respectively. Unlike sector rankings from QS and THE, CWUR does not use reputation surveys or university-submitted data, priding itself on its objectivity, though critics highlight its heavy emphasis on historical prestige and research performance. Canada is not slipping because its universities stopped being good. It is slipping because other countries are treating higher education as a national strategy Isaac Garcia-Sitton, LCI Education Associate professor at the University of Toronto, Elizabeth Buckner, told CTV News that she didn’t find the rankings “particularly convincing”, arguing that its employability scores were based on the number of alumni who are CEOs of top 2,000 companies. “That’s not to say universities aren’t under tremendous pressures, and that’s what the real story is,” added Buckner. “But we shouldn’t paint the entire sector as one in decline”. She said Canadian universities were “without a doubt” facing a “financial crunch”, highlighting 15 years of declining public funding, which used to provide 55% of university budgets and has fallen to approximately 40%. Meanwhile, before the government capped study visas in January 2024, institutions were offsetting much of this shortfall with international student tuition fees – a revenue stream largely cut off as Canada’s new international enrolments plunge far below Covid-era levels. “Programs are getting cut, faculty are not being replaced, and its affecting student services… The fiscal pressures are real,” said Buckner. Her concerns mirrored the picture painted by Garcia-Sitton, who said he was not “fatalistic” but that the rankings should be taken as a “warning light”. “The risk is that, in trying to solve a temporary resident numbers problem, Canada weakens one of its strongest long-term assets: its ability to attract, educate and retain global talent,” said Garcia-Sitton. He emphasised that rankings reward sustained investment in research, faculty, citations, graduate talent, global visibility and employability, adding: “These are not things that improve overnight.” But there have been some encouraging signs amid the turbulence. Notably, Ottawa’s CAD$1.7 billion initiative to recruit international researchers to Canada, something stakeholders say must be matched by stable institutional funding, research infrastructure and policy stability. “Recruiting top researchers is important; giving universities the conditions to retain talent and compete globally is the larger challenge,” said Garcia-Sitton, calling for a sector strategy that supports institutions, aligns enrolment with housing and labour-market planning, and restores confidence abroad. The post Canada risks losing ground as rivals invest in higher education appeared first on The PIE News .
9 Jun 2026
Why are TNE approvals surging in China?
According to analysis from the British Council, the approvals continue an upward trajectory after years of decline. A total of 285 partnerships were approved in 2025, taking the total number of Sino-foreign partnerships in China to 1,589. The last time more than 200 approvals were recorded in a single year was 2012, according to consultancy China Education International. China TNE experts are pointing to an improving policy environment, lingering financial pressures from the pandemic, and reputational reasons for the surge in approvals, but some warn to not expect the pattern to hold for long. Up until 2024, TNE partnership approvals in China peaked in 2012. Between 2008 and 2012, the sector experienced a period of rapid growth, mirroring broader global enthusiasm for transnational education. In the years that followed, approval numbers gradually declined. The pandemic further disrupted TNE development as China’s strict border controls and wider restrictions complicated international collaboration. The increase in approvals may also reflect a backlog of applications. According to British Council analysts, applications that were under consideration around 2022 appear to have been put on hold while the MoE worked through a series of TNE policy reforms. As those delayed applications are now being processed alongside newer submissions, approval numbers may be temporarily inflated. Who is securing partnerships? Newly approved partnerships were dominated by the UK, with over 40 UK-China partnerships appearing on the list. British universities have long played a prominent role in China’s TNE sector, including through the establishment of Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University and the University of Nottingham Ningbo China, which opened in 2006 and 2004 respectively. The US managed to establish some new partnerships despite continued political tensions between the two superpowers. Meanwhile, New Zealand secured more partnerships than the US, a development which has surprised some analysts. Which partners gain approval matters because partnerships decisions appear to be more intentional than in the past. Grok Global China director Rita Ren highlighted that approvals are focused narrowly on targeted programs: “There appears to be a stronger focus on areas such as AI, technology, engineering and other fields that align with broader workforce and economic priorities.” This echoes developments from the MoE over the past two years to focus on quality partnerships over quantity. This stemmed from concerns over quality standards in some joint programs and a wider push for ‘quality’ economic growth. Where are the partnerships based? The latest round of approvals is spread across much of China. In this round of new partnerships, only the westernmost provinces of Gansu, Ningxia, Xinjiang, Qinghai and Tibet are missing from the list. While these regions are not hotspots of HE activity, some international partnerships do exist in the far Western provinces as part of the Belt and Road Initiative, China’s flagship economic development initiative which it began in 2013. Such partnerships tend to focus on Central Asian neighbours. The biggest growth isn’t entirely centred on Tier 1 cities either. Shandong province has the largest number of new joint institutes and programs, its 10 new institutes and 18 new joint programs dwarfing Shanghai’s one new joint institute and one new joint program. While it is perhaps unfair to compare a city to a province, Tier 1 cities have long been hubs of higher education and generally attract more attention. Hainan, which three years ago was positioned as an emerging HE hub as part of its designation as a free trade zone, saw three new joint institute approvals and two new joint programs. The province is relatively small by Chinese standards and is not traditionally known as a higher education hub. Hainan is home to the ‘international education island’ strategy, that offers more favourable regulations towards international education providers wishing to set up in China. Within its free trade port zone, international providers can operate independently of local partners. Why the growth in partnerships now? China TNE experts are pointing to finances and policy as the main drivers. Financially speaking, Cheryl Yu, director at TNE Institute, says that the sector is still reeling from the damage of the pandemic. “Chinese universities after Covid are under financial pressure, so there is a financial motivation for Chinese universities to grow their TNE.” China had some of the strictest social distancing rules globally, disrupting classes and access to university. International students were meanwhile entirely barred from entering the country after China shut its international borders. “It is also important to look at how the Chinese government wants international education expenditure within China rather than outside of China,” continues Yu. The government increasingly wants to keep its students domestically, and TNE providers could be a way to tempt potential outbound students to stay at home. The incentive to stay may also be growing stronger as more Chinese universities climb international rankings, potentially reducing some of the prestige historically associated with studying overseas. But policy, analysts seem to agree, has the final say. Nous Group principal consultant Matt Durnin suggests that a rapid expansion of TNE partnerships could be on the cards for the MoE, on the back of softer policy. “They’ve eased the approval process and seem to be making the regulatory environment more accommodating for foreign providers,” Durnin tells PIE. Grok Global’s Ren agrees that policy signals in support of TNE started to improve last year, but warns against interpreting them as an opening of the floodgates to future approvals: “I haven’t seen a clear explanation from MoE, so I’d be cautious about drawing firm conclusions.” The post Why are TNE approvals surging in China? appeared first on The PIE News .
9 Jun 2026
Texas A&M University: World-class agricultural graduate degrees, fully remote
Texas A&M University has long been a global leader in agricultural and environmental sciences. They have the world’s leading experts in sustainable food and fibre systems, soil and water conservation, AI-driven research shaping the future of farming, and more. Now, the Department of Soil and Crop Sciences is making that same world-class expertise and education accessible no matter where you live or work. Ranked #1 in the US for Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources research expenditures, Texas A&M offers fully remote research graduate degrees in agronomy, plant breeding, and soil science. You’ll take the same courses as on-campus students, taught by the same international faculty, through Zoom, Teams, Skype, and Canvas. When it’s time for thesis or dissertation research, you can partner with a local research entity close to home. Prefer coursework only? The non-research MS gets you across the finish line without ever setting foot on campus. Here are four students who’ve been through the format and what it looked like for them. Soil and Crop Sciences trains future innovators to secure the future of food and fibre through hands-on work in agriculture and environmental stewardship. Source: Texas A&M University Wayne Swink, PhD in Plant Breeding and Genetics, Class of 2026 Wayne Swink served as a US Coast Guard before moving into agricultural research. Today, he works full-time with the USDA on hemp fibre and sustainable agriculture in Louisiana – a career shift driven by the belief that agriculture would always matter. Texas A&M’s 100% remote PhD let him keep that career and stay with his family – all while growing his expertise and contributing new knowledge to the field. The plant breeding and genetics courses were where everything clicked for him. “They gave me tools to understand everything from classical breeding to genome-wide sequencing,” Swink says. “That knowledge translates directly into my hemp research, helping me explore how to create stronger, more sustainable crops.” That connection between the classroom and the field was immediate. Louisiana is actively exploring hemp as a new crop, and his coursework puts him in a position to contribute directly to public and private hemp crop trials across the state. “What I learn in class, I can apply to my research almost at once,” Swink says. Ellen Melson, PhD in Plant Breeding, Class of 2023 Ellen Melson taught students from early school through the end of high school for 11 years before switching to agricultural research. With a family farm in rural Texas keeping her location-bound, Texas A&M’s 100% remote Plant Breeding PhD was the only option for her to get a doctoral education. She treated the remote format exactly like an in-person degree – active in classes and always reaching out to professors directly. She did not want to miss the opportunity of building relationships that extended well beyond the coursework. That investment paid off: hands-on breeding work with a local research scientist, arranged through faculty connections she built remotely, led her straight to her postdoctoral position after graduation. “Completing the distance PhD while working full-time showed I was capable of working efficiently under pressure,” Melson says. “I think continuing to accrue work experience while completing the programme made me more competitive.” The Department of Soil and Crop Sciences has over 200 students and over 90 faculty and staff specialising in biological, agronomic, crop, soil, turfgrass, and weed science. Source: Texas A&M University Heber Aquino, PhD in Plant Breeding, Class of 2026 Heber Aquino has spent 25 years in crop breeding and currently works as a research scientist at Corteva Agriscience. With a demanding global role and his life rooted in Argentina, he needed advanced academic training that could work around both, and Texas A&M’s 100% remote doctoral programme delivered exactly that. Courses like Plant Breeding II and Molecular Quantitative Genetics combine rigorous theory with practical, collaborative problem-solving in a virtual format. That classroom foundation feeds directly into his doctoral research, where he applies genomics and envirotyping to develop climate-resilient sorghum hybrids – work that maps onto the global food security challenges he tackles at Corteva. “The expertise I’ve gained aligns closely with our mission of enriching the lives of producers and consumers worldwide,” Aquino says. The degree has also broadened his career outlook beyond his current role at Corteva. The skills and knowledge he’s built have made him more competitive for whatever comes next. Nicholas Shepard, PhD in Molecular & Environmental Plant Sciences Nicholas Shepard’s interest in plant science took shape during his undergraduate years at Cornell, where he worked on disease resistance in potatoes and tomatoes. That early exposure to the challenges growers face brought him to the 100% remote MS in Plant Breeding. His thesis then focused on Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (NIR)-based selection in hemp, and that thesis defence became a turning point. A conversation with advisor Dr. David Stelly opened the door to cotton genomics and phenomics research on campus, and he entered the PhD programme in 2024. Molecular Quantitative Genetics taught him statistical genetics and how to think scientifically, while Plant Breeding I & II walked him through the full scope of a breeding programme, from germplasm development to selection strategies. Those skills have translated into career momentum. “My thesis work taught me how to design experiments, analyse data, and prepare manuscripts,” Shepard says. Learn more about Texas A&M University’s Department of Soil and Crop Sciences. Follow Texas A&M University on Facebook , X , Instagram , LinkedIn , and YouTube
9 Jun 2026
Surprise, graduates of ‘most useless degrees’ are thriving
The word useful comes from the Latin “usus” — meaning use, practice, or experience. At its root, usefulness simply means how much something can be put to work. That’s pretty straightforward. A degree is useful if it prepares you to work. It’s useful if you can practise it. It’s useful if you’ve experienced it. But the word useful can also be problematic. Because that’s when your mind starts thinking about how the sole purpose of university is to get you a job or when you think about the inverse — that is, the “most useless degrees.” What are the “most useless degrees”? The phrase “most useless degree” are always spoken about today about how they’re bad at two main things: 1) leading you directly to a job 2) earning you a high salary. The usual examples are: arts (music, painting, the likes) and the liberal arts (like philosophy and history). Other examples are “recreation management” or “business in tourism” — said to be some of the most useless degrees as the first led to jobs that a high school graduate could do and the second isn’t used at all in said graduate’s current job (which was not in business or tourism). But are all the most useful degrees that bad preparing you for the future? We spoke to three graduates to find out: Three graduates with some of the “most useless degrees” Isabel Palumbo has a bachelor’s degree in linguistics and a master’s degree in museology. Source: Isabel Palumbo Isabel Palumbo Italian national Isabel Palumbo initially pursued a degree in linguistics with the hope of teaching English or becoming an interpreter. It’s a common degree in Italy, but to others, it’s a “ useless degree ”. That’s not the worst thing they’ve said. When she moved to the Netherlands to pursue a master’s degree in museology — the study of museums — many called it another of of those “most useless degrees.” Palumbo does see where they’re coming from because, at some point, she found herself translating ancient Greek and old Latin, languages no longer spoken. “I started to question what I was doing, because when will I ever use these languages and when will they ever come in handy?” she says. But over time, she found worth in her degrees. “I design in 3D, and that requires me to take reference from real life, culture, and how others think or perceive art, as well as scientific ways of proportions and perspectives,” Palumbo shares. “These skills are all taught in my museology degree.” Despite her struggles, Palumbo has had the opportunity to work with the biggest names in the music industry, such as Cardi B, Nicki Minaj, and &TEAM. She has also worked with The Palace of Versailles, Meta, Burberry, Marc Jacobs, and Coachella. A “useless” degree wouldn’t do that for her. Utsa Bose is a PhD in History candidate from the University of Oxford. Source: Utsa Bose Utsa Bose Utsa Bose is the first in his family to pursue a history degree. Coming from an Indian family, his parents, siblings, and relatives all have STEM degrees. Did Bose find his degree useless? Not exactly, because to him, it all depends on who you’re surrounded by and where you pursue the degree. “I would say I’m lucky in the sense that although I’m in the humanities field, I’m pursuing it at an elite institution,” he explains. “I’ve had a lot of people say, ‘What’s the point of studying the subject?’, but once they hear I’m doing it at the University of Oxford, they don’t have anything else to say.” At the end of the day, Bose understands where they’re coming from, but he also knows that his degree exists to maintain balance in society. While many people may think that history is a worthless degree, it is an important lens to understand the past and present to support the future. “History is more than just studying the past; it includes incorporating science,” he explains. “I deal with information from both sides. I even talk to both medical specialists and historians to seek an understanding of how both intersect because I believe that the future is more than just a single interdisciplinary field.” Bose found a big value in his field. You’ll be doing it for the sake of the world’s future. Tanishqa Vaish is a Master of Science in Media and Communications graduate from the London School of Economics. Source: Tanishqa Vaish Tanishqa Vaish Hailing from India, Tanishqa Vaish got the chance to pursue her master’s degree at the London School of Economics. Specifically, she obtained a Master of Science in Media and Communications. She has always been interested in media, understanding its value in modern society. “Media is so important for any organisatio. Whether it’s finance or STEM or whatever, we’re responsible for putting it out in the world and how we’re putting it really matters because that can really make and break the organisation,” she says. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Impact (@impact) Yet, many people online (and in real life) often dismiss communication degrees as some of the “most useless degrees.” They’re often seen as easy and of “common sense.” Of recent years, media degrees have also been seen as regrettable, thanks to the industry’s record unemployment rates . When asked about whether she faces doubts from others about her chosen subject, she says, “Absolutely.” “And especially for women, I feel like there’s definitely a gendered angle to it as well, where people feel like, yeah, women are doing media because it’s easier compared to STEM or compared to other degrees like finance,” she expresses. But with the rise of AI and dropping media literacy rates, Vaish knows that media and communications are perhaps more important than ever. Specialists in these fields have more discernment when it comes to misinformation and expertise in authentic, ethical, and strategic messaging. Today, Vaish is putting her education to good use as a Communications Strategist at Wadhwani AI Global, focusing on providing human-centric AI services in underserved regions in the Global South. In 2024, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences found that 60.5% of women pursued humanities (historical category), 62.4% pursued humanities, and 63.8% pursued fine and performing arts, which are arguably some of the “most useless degrees”. Source: Pexels/Yusuf Çelik The gender angle: Are certain degrees deemed useless because it’s female-dominated? When people rattle off examples of “most useless degrees,” the list tends to look a certain way: media studies, communications, general studies, social work, the humanities. And when you look at the gender breakdown of who studies these fields, that list starts to look less like a coincidence. That aligns with what Vaish was talking about. And this is referred to as the “feminisation effect.” This is a phenomenon in which a field’s perceived prestige and economic value tend to decline as more women enter it, and to rise when men dominate it. This raises an uncomfortable question: when we call a degree “useless,” are we actually making a judgment about the subject matter — or about who tends to study it? When we dismiss entire fields as soft and impractical, we might just be participating in a system that has historically undervalued work done by women, and discouraging men from entering those fields, too. One way that employers justify this wage gap is the idea that women are secondary earners in families, not the breadwinner. As reported by this 2013 study on the feminisation of workforces , even though employers exploit female workers by providing low wages and few labour benefits, the employers sometimes boast, thinking they are doing the women a great favour, saying that, if these female workers were not employed, they would starve or would be involved in unethical jobs. And this results in a cycle in which women are more willing to accept lower wages because there are no other options, creating the “feminisation effect” in an industry that could then significantly lower average wages. This sort of mindset doesn’t apply to just ready-made garment industries of Bangladesh, which is what the study was based on. It happens even in modern, corporate systems, where men with families tend to be given higher wages. This is called the fatherhood bonus or premiums, while mothers experience the motherhood penalty . Of course, it’s important to think critically about career outcomes, but we also need to be honest about where our assumptions about “usefulness” come from. Why are certain fields not as economically incentivised? And are we playing a part in their devaluation, if we let only economic incentives guide our education choices?
9 Jun 2026
NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences: See the world, learn from global talent
Leonie Neitzel didn’t know what she wanted after finishing high school in Germany. She signed up for a programme in Hamburg, but soon realised it wasn’t right. Then she came across NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences’s Leisure & Events Management programme. That changed everything. Neitzel would end up travelling to as far as South Africa and Indonesia. More importantly, her NHL Stenden degree took her into a truly international community. “Looking back, I can confidently say that choosing NHL Stenden was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made,” she says. “It’s not just about the degree – it’s also about the people and the experiences you make along the way.” NHL Stenden’s community defines it. Based in the north of the Netherlands, it has campuses in Leeuwarden, Emmen, Meppel, and Terschelling. These are homes to students from more than 80 nationalities, places where you meet people from all over the world and exchange ideas every day. From day one, you’re learning alongside classmates and lecturers with different backgrounds and opinions. It’s a mix that lets everyone see and pursue new ways of thinking – exactly what university should be all about. Studying at NHL Stenden means learning through Design-Based Education, a hands-on approach across your programme in an inspiring, modern environment. Source: NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences The world is built into your curriculum While it may feel like the world is in NHL Stenden’s campuses, the university is just as committed to ensuring its students see the world. The Grand Tour sends you abroad for a semester at one of the university’s partner campuses – in South Africa, Indonesia, Thailand, Italy, or Aruba — where you take specialised minors while living somewhere new. Then there’s the Regional University Network-European University (RUN-EU) , a network of nine European universities that lets you join short, intensive programmes — usually two to eight weeks — working with students from different countries on real problems. International internships are also on the table, and you can mix and match these options across your degree. Neitzel chose to go to South Africa and Indonesia for her Grand Tour because she’d never been to either country. All she had to do was sign up, and her programme handled everything. She didn’t have to worry about finding a school or accommodation. She could fully focus on exploring the world and herself. In South Africa, Neitzel took a “Change and Innovation” minor, working alongside local students and businesses. In Bali, she explored “Inspirational Coaching and Leadership,” and each location pushed her thinking in a different direction. “It taught me that our Western European way is only one of many,” she says. “Understanding other cultures is key to understanding yourself.” Go further than your limits Karolina Uleckaité , a Creative Business student from Lithuania, stumbled across RUN-EU during NHL Stenden’s minors week. A friend’s enthusiasm for it pushed her to sign up too. Not long after, she found herself doing something she’d never imagined she would do: a landscape design programme in Portugal. “My RUN-EU journey was quite unexpected, and my decision to do the programme was made really fast,” she says. “I opted for a project that covered a new area for me, something I don’t do here at university but that I thought could be an interesting path to go down.” That instinct paid off. The programme – a project called “Living Playground Portugal” – took her to Lisbon, where she met students from across Europe, and it ended up being one of the standout moments of her degree. RUN-EU programmes are short, advanced experiences built on top of regular studies, covering topics outside a student’s main field. Travel, accommodation, and food were all covered through a grant, so Uleckaité could fully enjoy her time there. Though a seemingly small feature, this financial support had an outsized impact on her. It freed Uleckaité up to make new connections and build the confidence to travel alone for the first time. “I learned new things about myself, and it inspired me to do more solo travel,” Uleckaité says. NHL Stenden gets students ready for the world, and everything that comes with it. Source: NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences Get a taste of the real world For Adam Žovinec , a Slovak student in International Business , combining a Grand Tour in South Africa with an internship in Dubai gave him something coursework alone could never deliver: a clear picture of the career he wants, and what to leave behind. “Internships are a great way to bridge the gap between academic learning and real-world applications,” he says. “They can also teach you what you don’t like, which is equally valuable. For me, I realised I didn’t want to work in the service industry. Instead, I want to work with people from different countries, as they bring new perspectives and therefore amazing opportunities to learn.” His placement at Jumeirah in Dubai – a company with employees from 87 nationalities – showed him what a genuinely global workplace actually feels like. He left knowing exactly where he belongs. “For anyone considering an internship, I’d highly recommend embracing the challenge – you never know what you might learn about yourself,” he says. Learn more about NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences. Follow NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences on Facebook , Instagram , LinkedIn , TikTok , and YouTube
9 Jun 2026