Market Insights

With 56 countries and over a billion people, the African market currently stands as a preferred destination for business and market growth. Different regions and countries have different peculiarities that makes the need for clear market insights crucial. Our understanding of the African market makes us able to assess educational opportunities based on a range of factors:

1. Countries currently benefiting from major investment from the international community and undergoing extensive infrastructure developments therefore needing human resource development to meet its demands.
2. Countries currently exploring and developing natural resources i.e. oil, gas, precious metals etc and hence seeking local content and capacity development.
3. Countries currently developing their educational and innovation systems to give way to international partnerships.
4. Countries whose educational systems have a seeming fit with the British Educational system and those currently seeking new British educational links (Francophone and Lusophone Africa).
5. Countries with a huge gap between the increased demand for education and its limited supply of the same.

With an established partnership profile and comprehensive network of market experts and associates in over 35 African countries spread across West, East, Southern and Central Africa, we are able to provide incredible market insights and perspectives that informs the strategy development of international Institutions including those in the United Kingdom.

Strategic Partnerships and In-country Support

Post Brexit, the pressure for UK Universities and HE institutions to increase their Africa engagement has increased against a backdrop of huge opportunities, potential risks, limited understanding of the market space all within an internationalization agenda. This goes beyond just student recruitment to establishing strategic partnerships for research collaborations, exchange programs, global exposure for increased student experience, all within a trans-national education umbrella.

We are experts in setting up meetings and strategic agreements with different African governments, corporate bodies and multinationals, local African university partners (for collaborative research, co-application of research funds, distance learning programmes, executive education development etc

To set up and grow these partnerships, we develop engagement documents, visits or arrange for visits to these locations and vice versa, coordinate signing of Memorandum of Understandings (MOUs) and grow these MOUs towards increased revenues and impacts.

Developing Strategic Programmes and Events

At TAEG, we specialise in the design of projects and specialized programmes with a business and reputation enhancing case for international universities. These projects will be designed to take advantage of strong competencies in the UK institutions while trying to meet a knowledge gap in African countries.

One of the low-cost ways to profile an international university is in the organization of or participation in specialized events i.e. seminars, workshops, conferences.

It would involve pitching to African government, academia, and industry across the African region to organize strategic events in partnership with UK institutions. These events will serve two main purposes generally – media/brand profiling and marketing for UK University programmes in relevant subject areas.

International Education Strategy

As an organisation, we understand that the international education market in Africa is huge but requires a clear strategy to grow in. Many international universities focus on developing traditional recruitment strategies that involves participating in international education fairs, placing adverts in national newspapers and depending heavily on recruitment agents.

In the last couple of years and especially with the effect from the global pandemic that is COVID, there is need for a holistic approach to developing and implementing international education strategies for international institutions.

This is a core service of the Africa Education Group. We use a holistic approach to support our clients in developing educational strategies that takes cognisance of strategic partnerships, training programmes, exchange initiatives, distance learning opportunities, international research funding opportunities amongst others. This forms the bedrock of developing a Trans-national Education strategy that is sustainable and impactful.

Supporting International Research Funding Opportunities

Few years ago, the Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) 1.5 Billion Pound fund, was a huge initiative set up by the UK Government to increase development-focused research collaborations for UK institutions in developing economies that make up the DAC List of countries. Over this period, African countries have benefitted from these huge funding opportunities. In the first round of funding and subsequent ones, African countries formed the largest number of developing economies beneficiaries of the fund.

With increasing global trade and investment and the fluidity in applying for and winning international research funding, there is need for strategic support to help international universities apply for and win international research or development funding focused on Africa.

In the last three years, we have supported in developing and winning international research grants for a range of UK Universities to the tune of over 40 million British Pounds. We do this through a special service of supporting in arranging for strategic partnerships with African partners (from industry, government, academia and civil societies); collating of CVs, support letters and other funding documentations; managing the liaison and communication to make the call proposal development process seamless; and also supporting in the project management, evaluation, performance management and reporting of the project after they have been won.

Supporting Careers for UK BAME and International Students

The BAME (Black and Minority Ethnic) attainment gap, which recently has been the focus of significant attention, measures outcomes of UK domiciled students.  For the year 2017/18, the gap stood at 13%, with 81% of white students achieving a first or 2.1 in contrast to 68% of BAME students (UUK, 2019). In comparison, the non-EU attainment level was lower at 66.8% in the same academic year.

Regrettably, there is currently no official nation-wide data that shows graduate outcomes and academic attainment for international students. However, reports from individual universities suggest a significant gap between international students and white students. Historically, career support at universities have focused on employability including interview skills and CV writing, however, there is a noticeable shift towards equipping students with soft skills (especially confidence, creativity and collaboration). As a consequence, this requires expanding career support to provide career planning that places an emphasis on life-long learning, soft skills, entrepreneurship and world-readiness. Under our career support portfolio, we offer a range of services which includes:

1. Delivering Africa-focused career training via online workshops, webinars, and a comprehensive UK career enhancement training programmes certified by the CPD Certification Service.
2. Placement of student in African organisations and institutions.
3. Career Coaching and Mentoring - provides virtual 1-1 and ‘peer’ co-coaching services for students to minimise barriers that they face as they transition into university, and progress within higher education. We help student support teams to add value to the student experience in what is expected to be a challenging period ahead.