Last week, I had the opportunity to present at, sponsor and interact with more than 800 delegates at the Educate+ International Conference in Brisbane. With 809 delegates and attendees from across Australasia and Asia.
Across four days there were conversations about Advancement, Admissions, Marketing, Philanthropy and Community Engagement. International education had a relatively concentrated presence, but what struck me was how naturally the international conversation now sits across many of these areas.
I was fortunate to present the conference session on international students alongside Lyndall Dakic, Founder and Managing Director of Venn International, and Jiani Chen, International Program and Marketing Manager at Stella Maris College. Our session started with a deliberately simple question: “Who’s at the door?”
But perhaps the more important question was not who is at the door. It was what Australian schools are doing once they decide they want international students to walk through it.
The numbers tell us only part of the story
Australia’s international school sector has recovered significantly from the COVID years, but that recovery is uneven and, in some states, the new-student pipeline deserves attention.
Victoria is an interesting example. YTD May 2026, it had Australia’s largest international school-sector enrolment base, with 5,225 students, representing 32.9% of the national total. Yet Victoria ranked third for new commencements, and both enrolments and commencements remained well below 2020 levels. Queensland has proven a success story, backed by ELICOS colleges embedded in their school sector, government promotion and world-class opportunities.
China also remains enormously important. And this became an important part of our round-table discussion.
Knowing where students are coming from, however, is the easy part. Understanding how to reach those students and families – and how to support them properly once they choose Australia – is considerably harder.
Relationships cannot be outsourced
Both Lyndall and Jiani brought significant first-hand experience to this conversation.
Having lived and worked in China, Lyndall spoke about the importance of genuine networks, reliable means of communication and trusted recruitment relationships. China is not a market in which schools can expect to establish meaningful relationships through an occasional recruitment trip. Relationships take time.
Jiani brought another perspective. She first came to Australia as an international student herself and has subsequently spent years developing a successful international program at Stella Maris College.
What was particularly striking in Jiani’s story was the amount of time, commitment and care involved in bringing a young international student to Australia and supporting them once they arrive. International student support does not conveniently operate between 9am and 5pm. Students and their families may need help and reassurance at any time, particularly when they are navigating a new country, school system and culture.
There was also considerable discussion about education agents.
For schools, the message was not that agents are a problem. Good agents are extremely valuable. But schools need to know who they are working with, build relationships with agents they trust, and understand whether – and how – sub-agents may also be representing their school.
In other words, schools can outsource parts of the recruitment process, but they cannot outsource the relationship.
Recruitment is only the beginning
We talk frequently about international student recruitment. We talk somewhat less about what happens after a student says yes.
One of the questions we posed during the session was: “What does a successful international program look like?”
The round-table discussion produced an interesting answer. Success is not simply about how many students a school recruits, or even where those students ultimately go to university. Increasingly, it is about whether those students are happy, supported and able to build a future that is right for them.
Of course, university pathways remain important. Schools and families still want students to achieve academically and progress to further study. But the conversation suggested that the definition of a “successful outcome” is becoming broader.
ATAR rankings, for example, are not necessarily the dominant measure they once were. Employability, future opportunities, student wellbeing and happiness are becoming increasingly important measures of success.
Jiani brought in the statistic that China’s urban unemployment rate for 16–24-year-olds who were not students was 17.9%, up sharply from 14.9% in June and the highest level in 11 months. At the same time, a record 12.7 million university graduates were entering China’s labour market in 2026.
The question is shifting from “Which university did this student get into?” towards “How do we help this young person build a successful and fulfilling future?”
That broader definition of success also raises questions about how schools make admissions decisions in the first place. Recruiting the right students – and understanding how to support them once they arrive – requires more than simply establishing whether they can pass an admissions test.
The table discussions showed that schools increasingly want admissions assessment to tell them something useful about the student who will actually arrive in their classroom. That becomes difficult when students can be extensively coached or prepared for a particular test format, to the point where the result may reflect familiarity with the test as much as the student’s underlying readiness.
The conversation in admissions is therefore shifting towards broader and more authentic assessment: looking not only at academic and English proficiency, but at how students think, communicate and respond to unfamiliar tasks. The goal should not be to find students who are good at taking an admissions test. It should be to understand the student well enough to make a good admissions decision – and, importantly, to know what support they may need after that decision is made.
Taken together, these conversations change the way we should think about both international admissions and international programs in schools.
A successful international program isn’t simply a recruitment strategy. It is a whole-school commitment – and ultimately, a student success strategy.
Admissions may get the student through the door, but international education then intersects with student wellbeing, academics, English language support, homestay or boarding, finance, compliance, communication, marketing, leadership and the broader school community.
And perhaps the most important measure comes from the students themselves. Are they happy? Do they feel that they belong? Are they succeeding? And are they leaving school prepared for what comes next?
International education and Advancement
Educate+ is not an international education association. Yet international student recruitment is increasingly relevant to the professionals working across Admissions, Marketing and Community Engagement.
Mandy McFarland, CEO of Educate+, sees this as an area of growing importance for members.
“International student recruitment is a growing priority for many institutions and educate+ is helping members build capability through stronger connections across Asia, practical professional development and shared expertise in Admissions, Marketing and Community Engagement.”
That work is already moving beyond Australia and New Zealand. Educate+ will hold its Asia Academy at Kellett School in Hong Kong on 15-16 October, with 87 delegates already registered.
Educate+ Advancement Academy Asia
There is something important in that direction. If Australian schools want to recruit successfully in Asia, we need opportunities not only to talk about Asia from Australia, but to learn in Asia, build networks there and understand markets from within them.
Educate+ will continue that professional development closer to home in 2027, with chapter Summits planned across Australia and New Zealand: WA on 20-21 May; VIC/TAS on 8-9 July; QLD on 26-27 July; New Zealand in early September; SA/NT on 16-17 September; and NSW/ACT on 18-19 October.
So, who is at the door?
Perhaps that isn’t quite the right question.
We know who’s there. We have the data.
The harder questions are whether Australian schools understand the markets those students come from, whether they know and trust the people representing them, and whether they have built the programs and support structures necessary to look after students once they arrive.
International education may be measured in enrolments and commencements, but the conversation in Brisbane was a useful reminder that successful international education is ultimately built on relationships.
