Over 1,500 people attended the 32nd annual Australian International Education Conference (AIEC 2018) in Sydney last week, to talk about empowering the next generation. There were so many lessons and nuggets of gold and some common themes emerged. Here are few of our favourite moments and key takeaways from our clients and new connections.

1.  Traditional education versus modern learning – what is the future?

The future of education needs to be a collaborative approach, including a mix of traditional and new ways of learning. Our Customer Success Manager, Kate Cross has experienced this first hand during her recent studies.

“I think the future of education needs to be a collaborative approach, including multiple mediums such as video and more channels including online discussions. Classes that allowed for a more flexible and collaborative learning approach were more engaging than classes that were primarily developed with a more directive approach. Today, students have access to more unique content than ever before, providing alternative approaches, opinions, and methods. Diversity of opinion and freedom to challenge the status-quo is an incredibly powerful tool when it comes to driving innovation among the younger generations, and we need to frame education around empowering them to do so.”

The role of educators in the future will be to provide international students with the best possible opportunity to collect their ideas, critically reflect on them and have the freedom to create their own.

2.  Quality regional education needs to be a national focus

Regional institutions are just as important to the international education sector as city-based institutions. Based in regional Victoria, Bradley Fyfe, Manager of International Programs at Sunraysia Institute of TAFE, provided a great regional perspective on the conference.

“The quality of international education should not be reserved for elite institutions, it should be a national objective. We need to remember that studying anywhere in Australia is a great life experience for international students. As educators we are part of this journey, witnessing their personal growth daily. That’s the true return on investment for their parents.”

Brad also added that it was a great opportunity to network with existing partners, such as Cohort Go, and also make new connections that he may not have otherwise been able to.

3.  Most of the issues are not technical, they’re human

As an industry, we tend to focus on the issues surrounding international students rather than the students themselves. As technology and AI advance, humanity will become a desired attribute. Why? Most of the issues are not technical, they’re human.

We spoke with Lindsay Melville, Business Intelligence Manager at Sonder Australia who said, “Empowering the next generation, should be about focusing on the students, the human element. As a technology company, we see our technological solutions as the vessel that connects human beings.” 

We feel the same at Cohort Go. From a client perspective, our Customer Success Manager Kate works closely with the senior technology and product team on opportunities where it has been identified that a customer, like ATMC (pictured below), may be looking for something unique and tailored to their specific needs. From a student perspective, we regularly receive positive feedback from our international students. In everything we do, from our technology, to user experience and business decisions, we always strive to find the better way.

Lindsay's tip for the AIEC 2019 conference program? Include international student speakers, to provide real insights from real international students.

Some of our favourite conference moments.

Congratulations to IDP and IEAA on the success of AIEC 2018! We would like to highlight a few special moments that we created together.

As IDP’s global payments partner, the Cohort Go team had the pleasure of attending IDP’s networking drinks on Thursday afternoon. It was a great chance for us to congratulate our top three performing IDP agencies for global payments, IDP Cambodia, IDP Vietnam, and IDP India. You all look great in our famous Cohort Go t-shirts! We appreciate all of your ongoing support and look forward to continuing this successful partnership.

Missed the conference this year? Check out all the action on Twitter #AIEC2018.