Recently, the British Council has introduced a digital badge that it claims, after the needed training, its agents and school counselors will be able to carry and share their professional achievements and knowledge obtained through an hour-long webinar besides that, as they completed the webinar series, promoted and supported by the CEU, of the British Council.
The International Student Mobility team of the British Council operates the Agent and Counselor Training and Engagement Hub and in the rubric of this, the digital badge will be given to the agents who have completed the agent training, have passed the knowledge of the UK’s National Code of Ethical Practice for Education Agents, and have agreed to be listed on the public-facing database of agents.
The new badge is then displayed for each user, which means that the new UK Certified Counsellor badge is for the agents or counsellors themselves, and not the organization they belong to or work for. The badge will be valid for two years, just like the certification.
In a press release The British Council said that the scheme “aims to let students from abroad and their parents feel they are talking to a counselor who knows the UK as a study destination and is aware of its ethical code of conduct”.
The new digital badge was announced with other improvements to training which includes content on student housing, the cost of living in the UK and finance.
In late 2022, the British Council launched the new Agent and Counsellor Training and Engagement Hub as a free training and assessment tool for agents.
The certification course is available on the BC hub, ICEF Academy and also TrainHub. As of this moment, there were 11,333 of them listed on the British Council public database.
For more information about the agent certification scheme, the Agent Quality Framework for education providers and the National Code of Ethical Practice for Education Agents, see here.
At the same time, the British Council has also designed a series of webinars with content dedicated to agents and counsellors living in EU countries, which are aimed at the enrichment of the agent training.
Revamped Content:
The webinar series will be held from September 2024 to March 2025 and will include the topics: Understanding the UK Agent Quality Framework; Employability, Careers Services and Post-Study Work Opportunities; Navigating UK Student Visa Policy; UK Study Financing; and UK Student Accommodation.
Moreover, there are also meetings with the UCAS, the university admissions platform, and the British Universities International Liaison Association (BUILA).