Detailed, consistent and up to date insights into pathway recruitment performance are often difficult to find. Some US universities give good data at a granular level and I reported on some of these in a recent blog. The completion of the reporting cycle for INTO’s Joint Ventures and wholly owned centres in the UK gives a comprehensive picture of their enrolments in the 2017/18 financial year.
For the ten entities – eight joint ventures and two wholly owned centres – that have been trading five years, total enrollments bounced back from the low point in 2016/17 but remain short of 2013/14 levels. This suggests that it’s probably still pretty tough going for the UK pathway market.
Table 1 – Average Enrolments for INTO Centres 2013/14 to 2017/18
Source: Annual Reports
At a detailed level the drivers of growth were Newcastle and City which bounced back after several years of decline and Queen’s. Long-term partners East Anglia seem to have bottomed out after three years of decline. Neither Stirling or Gloucestershire, the most recent partners in this group, have got over the 200 student mark after five years.
Table 2 – INTO UK Centres Average Enrolments 2013/14 to 2017/18
INTO centres split educational oversight between ISI and the Quality Assurance Agency with the former giving specific details on numbers enrolled and the latter being less prescriptive. While the annual reports noted above are averages across the financial year (August to July) in question, the ISI education oversight into three centres gives deeper insight into the most recent autumn intakes.
The distinction between EFL and FE used in the ISI reports broadly distinguishes between students on English Language only or Academic courses. Newcastle appears to have a significant number doing both.
Table 3 – Student Population of three INTO centres – November 2018
The other INTO Joint Venture is Newcastle University London which had an inaugural intake in 2015 and offers both pathway and degree courses. At the time of launch the university indicated that ‘…..in collaboration with INTO, our London campus is expected to grow to 1,200 students’. Three years in the average numbers for 2017/18 were 381.
Recent UK pathway activity from established providers has largely centred on adding well ranked partners with Study Group, Navitas and Kaplan gaining Aberdeen, Leicester and Essex respectively. Newer players have generally picked up less well-known names with Oxford International adding Greenwich and QA HE with Southampton Solent. With the UK Government launching its new strategy for international student recruitment it remains to be seen if the cake will grow for everyone or if the strong will dominate.
NOTE: Table 2 updated 16 June 2019 to include INTO Glasgow Caledonian University 2017/18 enrolment