The Language Business

Education UK and UCAS searches compared

The Education UK site uses UCAS data under licence, so you would expect the search results to be much the same, if not exactly the same. But they're not. Even if you think it is more suitable for a non-native speaker of English to type, say, "Biological science" rather than click on it, the fact is that the student who does succeed in getting the spelling right etc. may have a rocky time. The serious question is why does anybody believe that the search system on Education UK, which has been this way for almost 8 years, is better in any regard for overseas students? It works sort of, for some searches, so it's better than the EFL or summer course searches. But let's not kid ourselves that this crappy service is helping international student recruitment.

Education UK and Independent Schools

A short video which illustrates the utterly inadequate service offered by the British Council to overseas students and parents in respect of independent schools, particularly when compared with the service offered entirely free of charge by the Independent Schools Council.

Education UK Summer Courses

This is just another example of how Education UK has failed to serve the interests of either international students or UK schools. Depressing, but that is what we're stuck with.

EFL Course Search on Education UK

This is a video I made in April this year in order to make the British Council aware of the fact that their service for English language institutions in the UK on the one hand, and for international students on the other, is in need of attention because it doesn't work. You can get a bigger screen format on YouTube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Czc6VtFn-I 

Another school video site

The demand for videos with school presentations looks very strong, and I am quite happy to have a site that focuses on UK schools, boarding and language schools, at UK school videos. But I'm already involved with videos outside the UK, such as the French and Italian ones on this blog, so I've put up a "sister" site called International school videos, which you can see here. Instead of searching by UK region, you choose a country (yes, I know, it needs more countries...). When the site went up I was contacted almost immediately by a school in Malta who wanted their video included, and I hope to have that in place very soon.

You can see where our principal site visitors are from at any one time by clicking here. Just wait for the three maps to load.
 

Et maintenant...

Que vais-je faire? Well the answer is that I have made a (sort of) video for a school in France. Since I haven't actually visited the school, I suppose I am now in agency country which is a bit of a challenge to my self-image. But there it is. It was fun making this, and they are very nice people (I do know that much). 2 minutes only.