Raising the Bar: Quality Assurance Standards for Education Agents
Dr Patrick Pheasant1
1NEAS Australia, Surry Hills, Australia
Education agents are vital partners to universities, vocational education and training providers, ELICOS, high schools and online providers of English Language Teaching. They impact student expectations and set the tone for the student experience. Australia is leading the way in standards development and independent, non-governmental specialist Quality Assurance for Education Agents. Quality is key to maintaining Australia’s reputation for being a fantastic and rewarding place to study for students all over the world. Providers partnering with education agents need evidence that their partners adhere to strong ethical principles, are supported by strong governance structures, maintain a culture of performance management and professional development, have risk management systems in place and embark on continual improvement processes based on stakeholder feedback. This session explores the importance of establishing an industry-led quality assurance for education agents with a specialist who providers know and trust.
Biography:
NEAS Australia is a global leader in quality assurance for the English Language Teaching (ELT) sector. In the role of Chief Executive Officer, Dr Patrick Pheasant brings 25 years’ experience in applying drama, TESOL and teacher training methodologies across multiple education sectors around the world. Patrick has extensive experience in change management and leadership development and completed his PhD research at the University of Sydney in using process drama in ELT. Patrick is a past Director at the University of Sydney Centre for English Teaching, past Vice-President of the University English Centres of Australia (UECA) and past Convenor of the NEAS Advisory Council.
NEAS Australia (www.neas.org.au ) quality assures more than 110 organisations across more than 200 sites in Australia, ASEAN, China and the Middle East. As an independent, non-governmental, quality assurance specialist for the English language teaching (ELT) community, NEAS endorses ELT centres and courses in universities, high schools, VET, independent and online providers. NEAS also quality assures education agents, products and services and ELT professionals.