2011 ICOS Seminar

Ireland’s International Education Strategy, launched in September 2010, set out a vision of what the Government and institutions needed to do together in order to develop Ireland’s potential as a destination of choice for international students. A new brand has now been developed to promote and underpin that strategy, “Education in Ireland – World Class Standards Warmest of Welcomes”. The tag line suggests a very high opinion of Ireland’s current educational and cultural offering but are we really delivering a world class experience to international students? What could and should we be doing to encourage and maintain high standards? And is our welcome really as warm as we like to think it is?

These and other questions were explored by a panel of experts, practitioners and students in ICOS’ annual seminar on 9th June 2011. The seminar was opened by Ciarán Cannon, TD, Minister of State for Training and Skills, Department of Education, and among the key contributors was Dominic Scott OBE, CEO of UK Council for International Student Affairs (UKCISA) who shared his experience on national interventions to enhance the student experience, drawing on lessons learned from the Prime Minister’s Initiative in the UK.

The second half of the seminar provided opportunity to network and share good practice on specific issues through facilitated workshops.

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Seminar Programme

2.00-2.15 Registration

2.15 Welcome from the Chair, Colm Murphy – Education Officer and Deputy President elect, USI

Opening Address Ciáran Cannon TD, Minister of State for Training and Skills, DES

2.30 World Class Standards – Warmest of Welcomes

• Dominic Scott – CEO, UKCISA – National level initiatives to enhance student support
• Nicola Carroll (Head of International Office, National College of Ireland) - Institutional perspective
• Samantha Tan (Vice-President for Equality and Diversity, Queens University Students Union)– International student perspective
• Q & A

3.15 Workshops - Enhancing the Student experience – Sharing ideas and good practice

(a) Working with local authorities/local communities - Exploring the relationships and added value for international students that can be achieved through cooperation and joint initiatives between local authorities and HEIs. Facilitated by Jamie Cudden, Dublin City Council

(b) Working with student unions and associations – exploring how student unions and institutions can best work together to address the integration of international students and achieve positive outcomes for all students. Facilitated by Colm Murphy, (USI) with input from Dominic Scott on the UK experience.

(c) International students and risk – have we got it covered? - Are host institutions sufficiently aware of the potential difficulties and problems that international students can encounter and can HEIs work more closely with other agencies to provide solutions? Facilitated by Emmanuel Njume Sone, Cairde with input from Louise Staunton, ICOS

4.00 Plenary

4.30 Close

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Contributors

Jamie Cudden is the Research Manager for Dublin City Council and is based in the Office of International Relations and Research. This unit was established in 2007 to develop Dublin's international profile. He manages a research program that measures and monitors Dublin's competitiveness in the international context. His main focus is to understand how Dublin compares to and can learn from best practice against other internationally competitive city regions. He is currently developing an internationalisation action plan for the city and also supports research within the council. He was responsible for establishing Dublin’s first opinion panel called “Your Dublin Your Voice” www.yourdublinyourvoice.ie

Prior to working in Dublin City Council he has over 5 years experience working in research, intelligence and policy roles in London with Local Government, the Home Office, Metropolitan Police and the Prison Service. During this time he was also an honorary research fellow with the Jill Dando institute of Crime Science based in University College London. Jamie has an MSC from University College London in Geographic Information Science (2002), and a honours degree in Science from Trinity College Dublin (1998).

Colm Murphy, a graduate of Waterford Institute of Technology, is Education Officer for the Union of Students in Ireland (USI) for the academic year 2010-2011. Colm was elected Deputy President of USI for 2011-201 at its National Congress in March and will assume that position on the 1st July.

Dominic Scott OBE has been Chief Executive of the UK Council for International Student Affairs (UKCISA, formerly UKCOSA), since 2004. Prior to that he held a number of senior positions with the British Council including postings to Norway, Egypt and India where he was Director of Education from 1995-2000. He is a member of the UK Border Agency's Joint Education Taskforce (JET), the UCAS International Board, the British Accreditation Council, is Chair of the UK NARIC Advisory Council and was, during the initial phase, a member of the Prime Minister's Initiative (PMI) Strategy Group.

UKCISA promotes the interests of international students and those who work with them. It has over 500 institutional members including every university in the UK and the majority of further education colleges that are active internationally. It liaises with government and advises on all aspects of the international student experience including legislation, regulations and policy which relate to fee status, visas, immigration, employment and other rights, restrictions and entitlements. From 2006- 2011, it managed all PMI ‘International Student Experience' project activities.

Emmanuel Njume Sone is a Cameroonian living in Ireland since 2005. Emmanual has a background in Law and currently works with Cairde as a Health Advocacy Officer. Cairde is an HSE funded organization which provides services and support to people from migrant communities faced with problems across a diverse range of issues from healthcare, social welfare, community development and integration. International students are among the client groups which regularly seek support and advice from Cairde.

Louise Staunton has worked with ICOS for the past 10 years and is currently the organisation’s Programme Manager and Trainer. As well as the design and delivery of training courses on cultural awareness to staff in HEIs, Louise is responsible for operational aspects of the Fellowship Programme as part of ICOS’ contract for services with Irish Aid. This includes arrangement of insurance cover for fellows and dealing with students who require support in crisis situations.

Samantha Tan is a third year medical student from Malaysia in Queens University Belfast, who is currently on a sabbatical year as the Vice-President for Equality and Diversity in QUBSU. She is also the Equality Officer elect for NUS-USI, the national representative body for students' unions in Northern Ireland.