International Strategy for Higher Education Institutions
International Strategy for Higher Education Institutions
Partnering for international employability Posted on by Vicky Lewis
The University of East London (UEL) is a magnet for Indian students. In 2022/23, nearly 8000 were studying there. That’s 77% of its international student body (and one in every 22 Indian students in the UK).
Most Indian students who study abroad need convincing that there will be an appropriate return on their (significant) investment. One of the things that makes UEL so attractive is its emphasis on empowering students for successful careers.
Its Vision 2028 progress update describes its mission as ‘equipping [students] with skills valued by employers, fostering connections and providing unwavering support in collaboration with industry partners’.
Lots of UK universities say this kind of thing. And many of them do a great job of preparing their domestic students for careers in the UK.
Some of them make the effort to understand – and provide - the additional guidance and support required by international students wishing to take advantage of the UK’s post-study work opportunities, which have opened up since the introduction of the Graduate Route visa in 2021.
A few UK universities go further by engaging with employers and, in collaboration with other institutions, running graduate careers fairs in the countries where most of their international students come from. A good example is the series of in-person graduate recruitment fairs in China organised annually by a consortium of high status universities (Newcastle, Warwick, St Andrews, Durham and Exeter).
These are designed to connect recent graduates with top employers. In 2024, each fair hosted ‘over 30 leading companies across Shanghai and Beijing, providing attendees with direct access to recruiters and insights into career paths, industry trends, and application processes’.
Strong relationships are being built up with many of those employers.
Deep, mutually beneficial partnerships are an essential ingredient of any strategy to enhance the international employability of a university’s graduates.
So back to UEL. Given the size of its Indian student population, you’d expect UEL to be keen to build connections in India. It is doing just this. And it’s adopting a far-sighted, strategic approach.
In June 2024, the Tamil Nadu government (through its WorkLabs unit and the Tamil Nadu Centre of Excellence for Advanced Manufacturing) partnered with UEL to hold a hackathon and work placement initiative. 22 postgraduate and final-year undergraduate students, all of Tamil Nadu origin, were selected from UEL’s Computer Science and Engineering departments.
They were divided into teams and competed to impress industry judges, with the opportunity to win fully funded 4-6 week work placements in Chennai. The event was a way of showcasing the students’ skills and innovations to recruiters, in some cases leading to job offers in fields such as robotics and AI.
There was also plenty of press coverage, raising UEL’s profile significantly.
The hackathon is just one example of the ongoing commitment being made by UEL to nurture government and industry partnerships in India.
November 2024 saw the launch of the UEL India Advisory Board, a ‘collaborative initiative aimed at aligning higher education with industry demands’. The information below draws on a LinkedIn post by UEL about this.
The Advisory Board will ensure that Indian students at UEL receive education aligned with the needs of India’s rapidly growing economy and ‘includes an impressive array of leaders from sectors such as finance, technology, and manufacturing, providing strategic direction to UEL’s initiatives in India’.
The launch event (held at T-Works, described as Hyderabad’s premier innovation centre) featured panels and workshops ‘designed to foster knowledge-sharing and deepen partnerships, with industry experts sharing trends and insights, offering invaluable perspectives on shaping UEL’s curriculum to support job-ready graduates’. The initiative is also set to ‘enhance research collaborations and student mobility between India and the UK, with plans to roll out tailored courses addressing India’s emerging skill needs’.
UEL’s approach is a win-win one.
Indian students benefit from the University’s laser-like focus on developing the skills and experience they will need to succeed in emerging careers back home, along with proactive efforts to introduce them to UEL’s network of industry connections in the country.
Meanwhile, Indian businesses have access to a pipeline of skilled talent, equipped to drive economic productivity. And state governments in India see opportunities to encourage the return of graduates from UK universities, reducing brain drain and retaining expertise within their region.
I’m sure there are many other examples across the sector of strategic approaches to building partnerships that support international employability. It would be great to hear about some of them in the comments.
INTERNATIONAL GRADUATE EMPLOYABILITY UEL PARTNERSHIP DEVELOPMENT INDIA
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