Projects to improve the international student experience

The Prime Minister's Initiative for International Education (PMI2)

From 2006-2011 UKCISA coordinated the student experience strand of PMI2 (see below), the main outcomes of which were:

• Prepare for Success - a free online self-access resource to prepare international students for studying in the UK, developed by the University of Southampton
• The International Student Calculator - a free online budgeting tool for international students, developed by the Brightside Trust
• the Teaching International Students project, based at the Higher Education Academy, providing a resource bank on teaching and learning issues for academic staff and others involved in working with international students
• the Internationalising Students Unions project run by NUS, who worked with 40 unions across the UK to develop and pilot a self-audit tool and training resources
• the New to International online training resource for recently appointed staff
• Good Practice Guides on accommodation, mentoring, volunteering, orientation and under 18s and a cross-cultural training DVD and guide to encouraging intercultural contact between students
• benchmarking studies of international student services

In addition, there were:

• pilot projects and overseas study visits, providing a series of case studies
• several research reports
• a series of PMI2 supported policy forums and networking events held by the Association of International Student Advisers, the FE International Network and English UK

A summary of the programme outcmoes can be found in PMI Student Experience Achievements 2006-2011

About the PMI

The Prime Minister’s Initiative (PMI) was originally launched by the Government in 1999 as a 5-year strategy to increase the number of international students in the UK. A second five-year phase of the PMI (known as PMI2) was launched in 2006. This comprised five interconnected projects (marketing and communications, HE partnerships, FE partnerships, student experience and employability) and aimed to:

• attract an additional 70,000 international students to UK HE and an additional 30,000 international students to UK FE
• double the number of countries sending more than 10,000 students per annum to the UK
• improve international student satisfaction in the UK
• achieve significant growth in the number of partnerships between the UK and other countries

Find out further details of the employability project, which is run by NASES in conjunction with AGCAS. The British Council manage both the marketing and partnerships projects.

A full overview of the PMI can be found from the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills (BIS) and British Council