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US and UK Online Higher Education: Compare and Contrast
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Phil interviews Rajay Naik, CEO of Skilled Education and formerly at Open University and Keypath Education, about his perspective on US and UK online higher education. Rajay describes his personal history seeing online from both the US and UK, and the two discuss whether the latter follows the former by five years or if it is more complex. Then Morgan, Neil, and Phil discuss the interview and their perspective on the key topics from the interview.
00:00 Introduction to Online Education Perspectives
34:35 Initial Reactions and Disagreements
36:57 The Impact of the Pandemic on Online Education
38:52 Unbundling Services in Online Education
41:44 International Student Recruitment Dynamics
46:08 Understanding Online Recruitment Strategies
48:43 Crossing Borders in EdTech and OPMs
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Transcript
Introduction and Purpose of the Episode
00:00:09
Speaker
Hi, and welcome to a special episode of Online Education Across the Atlantic. And today, for the first time, we're actually doing an interview-based podcast.
00:00:20
Speaker
And the opportunity we have is the fact that Rajay Nayak has had a lot of experience both in the UK and the US and other locations dealing with online education. So I thought it would be a good opportunity to get somebody else's perspective on the ah compare and contrast where online education is going in these different regions.
00:00:43
Speaker
So what we're going to do, we're going to share the interview with you, and then we're going to come back and have a conversation about what we heard. So I hope you enjoy the interview.
Rajay Nayak's Background and Contributions
00:00:56
Speaker
So we here at Online Education Across the Atlantic, we don't do interviews. that's not what This is not an interview-based podcast, but there's always time for exceptions. And ah one of the exceptions makes sense right now for two main reasons.
00:01:13
Speaker
One is the fact that this is ah the godfather of the podcast. ah You've actually introduced me to Neil several years ago. So we can actually say this is you're the executive producer of this podcast. So I appreciate appreciate that connection. Well, I think I've ever had. film I love it.
00:01:32
Speaker
Yeah. So it's a great connection. And you are a very good connector. But the second reason is, is that we are exploring the whole idea of online education and how it differs. So between the U.S. and between the U.K. and how do you understand those markets and other international issues.
00:01:53
Speaker
And you've got a very unique background in this area. So why don't we start off? Could you just do a quick... Well, introduce yourself, but if you could sort of describe for our viewers and listeners like where you've worked so that they can have a better idea of what you've seen in online education from different views.
00:02:11
Speaker
Thank you, Phil. and And honestly, you, Morgan, Neil, some of the best people I know, and i love the way you shine a light on our whole industry, on the whole space. And it's always a pleasure to speak. So the two minutes, Phil, is that um I started off life in a wonderful city called Coventry, thought the government was a place to change the world, was extraordinarily lucky in coming from quite ah ah you know a ah challenging upbringing, you know amazing parents and amazing love, but you know in terms of socioeconomic groupings and all of that, it was tough.
00:02:50
Speaker
and um But I had amazing opportunities in government, was in local government and then in central government, And at the time, i was very, very lucky because i'd been doing a lot in education. I'd written and co-authored quite a bit.
00:03:05
Speaker
I'd done a few boards ah fairly um early on in my career. And then the prime minister of the time, Gordon Brown, asked me to do this big review of higher education. This was in 2009. He and David Cameron, who was then leader of the opposition, set it up, Gordon Brown and Debbie Cameron. And um so it was on the review...
00:03:21
Speaker
and then fell in love with higher education. You know, got to know the system very well and went to the Open University initially
Development and Challenges in Online Education
00:03:28
Speaker
for a short time. I was there for six months and Martin Bean, who many, many people listening to this will know, um kind of was just the most amazing leader. And um I just, I just fell for this guy completely. It was just like, I need to spend more time here and was there for five years and, you know, was you know i kind of involved in really driving the next chapter in the OU story and particularly running the external aspects of the organization.
00:03:58
Speaker
And we had an amazing five years. During that time, we established FutureLearn ah Many people will know FutureLearn, but was essentially a moot platform, a response to what we saw going with Coursera and edX.
00:04:10
Speaker
And we had a good first few years. But what all the presidents and vice-chancellors were saying to me was, look, Roger, we need real degree programs, real students, real revenue. You know, where's the business model?
00:04:20
Speaker
And so OPM had kicked off. I was very close to joining 2U with Chip at that point, very close to joining Randy Best, but went with Sterling Partners and we built out KeyPath.
00:04:33
Speaker
and had the great privilege of of being chief exec um for our kind of bit of the business and um know we ran the online degrees for great international universities um you know so and which part of the so you the part the part of the business you're talking about with key path is specifically international but define what that meant so we can better the ah The European markets primarily, Phil, is what I was primarily focused on.
00:05:01
Speaker
Now, there was a lot of movement between the U.S. and the U.K. and Australia, as you know. Right. So we're revolving more. So Martin and Bean from the O.U. went on to run RMIT. And that was very helpful, obviously, when we were trying to do that deal. UNSW, Exeter, Aston, all of that. And you know we had a we had an amazing five years. You know, it was it was a time when you were still having to define what this kind of OPM thing was. You were having to kind of, know, people would fall off their chair when you would say, you know you're going to run their online degrees for 10 years. You're going to a ref share deal anything.
00:05:36
Speaker
you know, run marketing and recruitment and student support and all the rest of it on their behalf. But over time, people increasingly saw the benefits of doing it. They saw the need to move online.
00:05:46
Speaker
They saw that there was a capability set that they didn't have internally. um But I also, towards the end of my time, this was just before the pandemic, began to also realise how that model needed to evolve and how if we didn't begin to evolve it, then we were going to
Skilled Education's Innovations and Partnerships
00:06:06
Speaker
be in trouble.
00:06:06
Speaker
ah Because you know universities increasingly thought, you know what, i want more of this, I want less of that, I want ah slightly different business model, I want whatever. And so evolving that we thought was important, which is why we then created Skilled. But some yeah, feel really privileged to do something that is both you know hugely transformational you know in terms of the lives of thousands of people around the world, millions people around the world, but still really intellectually stimulating, really challenging, new challenges.
00:06:35
Speaker
kind of things to get stuck into every day. And um I just. so So tell us a little bit about skilled education and well, tell tell us about that, but where the focus is, because it also appears to me like there's been somewhat of a shift in the past year or two on how broad your scope is. So tell me about skilled. Yeah. So skilled essentially came about in 2020.
00:07:01
Speaker
um And it was a response to what we saw going on, which was people being too rigid with the model, essentially. If you were just doing 10 year rev share and these are the responsibilities, these are the programs, this is the split, that's too restrictive.
00:07:16
Speaker
yeah know We need to begin to evolve that. And that's what we wanted to do. And so we completely unbundled the proposition. And that enabled us to partner with some of the best universities in the world, firstly. So our first partner was University of Cambridge.
00:07:30
Speaker
Our second partner was the London in School of Economics, and so on. But it essentially meant that whether you want learning design, marketing recruitment, student support, admissions we increasingly do, tutoring we increasingly do,
00:07:43
Speaker
we could provide that choice to the university. And in addition to that, we could offer revenue share and fee for service. um And so essentially, the university gets a lot of control and choice, but you also get a partner that is only doing online, right, that is only focused on growing, particularly post-grad, kind of international enrolments to these degree programmes.
00:08:06
Speaker
But also in addition to that, you see an increasing number of universities moving in-house. They're growing their in-house position or they're growing with an OPM, but we can provide that kind of international engine for them. And so, yeah, you're right, Phil. I mean, we have obviously grown quite significantly and we've now also expanded into the US where you know US partners are coming to us and saying, look,
00:08:27
Speaker
um We really want to grow internationally. We really want to grow our online enrolments amongst students across the planet. Can you help us with that? And because we're unbundled, because we can kind of be quite aligned with our partners, we're we're having great success doing that too.
00:08:43
Speaker
So tell me about the international student angle and then let's get into our broader conversation. Do you only, like, are you limited to international student recruitment for online programs or is it you're limited to programs that include international enrollment? Like how tied are you to that angle?
00:09:04
Speaker
Great question. More of the latter than the former. So what we always say when we go into institutions is we want programs that are going to highly successful globally. And so that means that, for example, a lot of the US nursing programs don't really work internationally, right? They are really focused on a domestic audience.
00:09:22
Speaker
And by the way, you know there's a massive demand for them right so keep doing that domestically but if you are skilled to grow that program internationally we will be very straightforward and say that's not going to work because that's not what the global market is looking for but what the global market is looking for is increasingly we're finding we want to study with a great university in the us or uk i want to study with a big brand that know is admired around the world By the way, that doesn't need to be the Harvard, Yale, Stanford kind of badge. It can just be that I want to study with
Global Demand and Market Expansion
00:09:56
Speaker
the US or UK university, right? And and actually, in large number of cases, that's what it is.
00:10:00
Speaker
um And they want to study the programs you know, Phil, right? They want to do business programs. They want to do computing programs. They want to do engineering programs. And they want to healthcare programs. And then increasingly, we're encouraging our partners to do and interdisciplinary programs where you combine, know, one of our biggest programs right now is the MBA with AI, right?
00:10:18
Speaker
um Naturally. There's just extraordinary demand. And, you know, so so we bring the data, we bring the insights. You know, most of our senior team have been doing this in one way, shape or form for 15, 20 years from laureates and head and various other companies in this space.
00:10:37
Speaker
And we will say very, very clearly, these the programs that are going to work. And sometimes the universities say, look, strategically, we just need to do this because this faculty member has got a real desire and passion. and what And we all say, OK, let's do that within a balanced portfolio. Let's do that where we can build out some suites that are related.
00:10:55
Speaker
um Let's do that where we know we're going to be successful. And that's what's enabled us to get 100% partner satisfaction so so far, five years in. Sure. Great. Well, thank you. So you, ah you know, a very, a variety of perspectives, which is what I like. You've seen it from an institution, although a unique institution with open university.
00:11:15
Speaker
And by the way, Martin's going to be in Leeds. I'm just thinking maybe he should be my second interview. Yeah. For the podcast. But in any case, let's the broader topic is sort of understanding different online markets.
00:11:29
Speaker
And in the U.S., s I've described to people that, you know, if you go back to to the 2000s, the for-profits, the continuing education departments, and there was an OPM market already, but a lot of times it was regional schools, nursing. So stuff sort of over to the side.
00:11:48
Speaker
and It really changed in the U.S. in my perspective with the introduction of MOOCs and the introduction of 2U because what that sort of signal to the market was everybody, including elite universities, should think about what is our online strategy. and and and So the change wasn't the MOOC.
00:12:08
Speaker
The change was that Harvard and MIT started edX and you know that kind of thing. Stanford started Udacity and Coursera, and then the with 2U marketing to elite programs and the, there were other factors, but online education in the US really took off for nonprofit universities in the 2010s at the same time that for-profits were ah decreasing in enrollment.
00:12:37
Speaker
And so the market really exploded, but then now it's a very crowded market because all these schools have programs. So the dynamics have changed. The UK has been quite different.
00:12:49
Speaker
It seemed like outside of Open University, there wasn't much online in the early twenty ten ah So help me understand sort of that type of narrative of UK online education.
00:13:02
Speaker
where Where it really, what were the big markers of its changes? your your Your analysis is spot on, by the way, Phil. um You know, it is really interesting. When i arrived at the OU,
00:13:15
Speaker
there was just about no one doing online beyond our institution. Edinburgh had a little bit of activity. Coventry were talking about doing something. The one that was really the standout was Liverpool.
00:13:29
Speaker
Liverpool had a very long standing relationship with Laureate. That kicked off back in 2006, 2007. And Liverpool had built a really commanding position in that space.
00:13:41
Speaker
um Actually, some of our senior team had launched that back back then. And what you found was that it was it was really isolated. You know, like it was a little cottage industry inside universities sometimes. There was one or two programs.
00:13:53
Speaker
online and but they hadn't done the hard work they hadn't shifted their programs their systems their it their intakes their fees their everything else to really suit online that began to change when you had an increasing number of opms coming into the uk keep up was obviously one of them 2U was another.
00:14:15
Speaker
Wiley obviously had their business. Pearson had their business. And so as people began to become more informed, frankly, the US narrative really helped as well because you had big institutions that you could point to that you could tell the story with. That that did begin to evolve.
00:14:30
Speaker
I think there was a whole range of reasons why it didn't take off in the way that it it should have done, though. sure And this period you're talking about, particularly of OPMs coming into UK, is the first half of the 2010s, 2011 through 15? No. I mean, FutureLearn, we kicked off in 2012, which was health.
00:14:51
Speaker
But people thought that that could be their online story. And it really that's not an online story. you know Doing a MOOC is not an online story. And so it was really, I think, the latter half of Phil. It was 2014 through to 2020.
00:15:02
Speaker
twenty fourteen through to twenty twenty you know We really got Keep Arthur going 2015. ah Pearson were really beginning to evolve then. the Deltac deal had been done.
00:15:14
Speaker
um yeah That was when you saw people like Birmingham, people like Aston, ah ah bunch of others you know beginning to grow post-grad online. um But it really didn't take off, I don't think, until much, much, much more recently.
00:15:31
Speaker
And I think, frankly, yeah there's been complicated stories amongst the providers and the partners in this space. I think that has there's been a feeling sometimes that, do I need to do this?
00:15:44
Speaker
Whereas now, increasingly, I think the supply side, sorry, the demand side is saying to these universities, you need to do this. And yeah we we need you to provide great post-grad online.
00:15:55
Speaker
um And that's why in the UK, you're seeing an increasing number of formal processes going on either via an RFP or via- um so So it's later, but let me ask you an interesting timing question, or it's interesting to me, but I don't know if they're related.
00:16:13
Speaker
In the LMS market um in the early 2010s, it had to be on-premise type of hosting, particularly in UK and throughout Europe.
00:16:24
Speaker
And a lot of that was data privacy concerns. And the concept of putting academic information in the cloud was just an anathema. And that really seemed to change the trigger in the LMS market was Birmingham ah moving to Canvas. and I think that was in 2015, roughly, which is interesting timing because you're saying that's right around the timeframe that the OPM. So it seemed like there was some inflection point, but not just in terms of purely online, but sort of the online digital education
Impact of Digital Infrastructure and COVID
00:16:56
Speaker
concept. Is there a correlation there? There's definitely correlation. There's definitely correlation.
00:17:00
Speaker
you know, if you think about it from the perspective of university, right, and I you're absolutely right, it was a real privilege to sit around the table at the OU. And that's helped me, you know, over the last 10 years, as I've as I've thought about partnerships in this space. yeah You've got anywhere between five and 10 really serious, big strategic priorities you're driving through your organization that are consuming every single day, right? Every single committee, council, board, all of that is it really focused on those big five to 10 kind drivers.
00:17:33
Speaker
You've then got at least five to 10 emergencies that you're dealing with at any one time, you know, on top of that. And so know I totally get it. You know, like when you know, when I'm talking to the provost that I was just talking to at an amazing US university before this, you know, she's saying to me, you know, I really want to do this. and And she's spending a huge amount of time on it.
00:17:55
Speaker
There's a lot of stuff going on. And so unless it becomes a priority, unless the president and provost say, look, this is really important because this is where we need to be by 2030, 2035, it doesn't happen. that'st happened And that's where I think it relates to the wider digital infrastructure of the university.
00:18:12
Speaker
you know It's an increasing number of universities saying, you know what? And COVID, by the way, I think is a massive red herring in all of this. I don't think COVID particularly helped us in any way, shape or form. I think arguably it got in the way and and it meant that people had a bad perception about online learning and and things like that. But I think increasingly, students are expecting a different type of provision on campus.
00:18:35
Speaker
That has led to a realization that they need to shift the LMS infrastructure, the SITs and the student registration system, the fees portals, the CRMs, all of that sort of stuff on campus.
00:18:47
Speaker
And it's increasingly meant that they realize also that, you know, what we can move into this digital online innovation realm And this can really, really, really help us.
00:18:58
Speaker
Where I do encourage universities to be cautious, though, is to say, don't set this up in isolation. Don't put this on the side of the institution in some other box, because A, it's going to be inefficient, and B, you're not going to get the benefits from it.
00:19:12
Speaker
Actually, see it as a core part of your teaching and learning strategy.
Strategies for Online Education Integration
00:19:16
Speaker
See it as a core part of your internationalization strategy. sheett See it as a core part of your financial strategy. And that's how you're going to get the best returns. That's how you're going to Isn't there, I can see that argument long term, but isn't there an argument saying, but you're, a lot of universities need a skunk works approach. They need the ability. And I guess for listeners that are not of the proper age, ah skunk works was created by Lockheed um and they're,
00:19:43
Speaker
The 50s, 60s, and the idea was for this type of long-range work that at the time led to the U-2 aircraft and some really innovative stuff, we have to create a separate organization that doesn't have our bureaucracy and mindsets, and you're not fighting...
00:19:59
Speaker
And you can establish something and then you can integrate it back in. So I guess my question to you is, isn't there a risk of trying to, from day one, put it into the mainstream of the university that you then set yourself up against bureaucracy and perceived assumptions that make it slower?
00:20:17
Speaker
it's a great It's a great question, Phil. And what I would say there is even Lockheed Martin would come back and say, at some point, you need to have view to where it's going to get to. And I absolutely am with you in validation processes. These programs need to be a slightly different muscle because otherwise it's going to take four years. um The ability to sign stuff off needs to move quickly because you know we want to get into market swiftly.
00:20:42
Speaker
The ability to ah you know ensure that we can get accreditation and some of those sorts things needs to move more quickly. And so why do they ever partner with us, right, is is kind of the question um that we we're also kind of getting to here. Because and why why wouldn't universities just do this in-house?
00:21:00
Speaker
And I think sometimes we thought about capital as being a big, big driver for this. I've always thought, actually, it's more about expertise and bandwidth.
00:21:10
Speaker
you know, that expertise and bandwidth, A, to just have a space in the day to do it well, but B, the expertise to really get the learnings from student success and student experience guys right the way through back to the learning design guys.
00:21:25
Speaker
and the marketing guys and the reviews. So the skunk works in this case is your partnership with an OPM company. That is your skunk works. Let us move things quicker and to and not be with your past assumptions, but from day one with the idea that over time, we've got to get this back into the main part of the university. Absolutely right. And it has to have the legitimacy and the buy-in and the blessing of the people right at the very top.
00:21:54
Speaker
and And the best examples of this I've seen are where it reports into the provost or, you know someone right at the top of the organisation, but they allow us the space to move quickly, you know. um And I always say, don't ask academics to be involved if they're really reluctant and that kind of stuff, right?
00:22:14
Speaker
Move quickly, go with the people that want to be involved. And as I heard in a meeting yesterday, everyone then wants to jump in because in six months time, they see that it's successful. They see that it's going really, really well. They see great retention and great student satisfaction.
00:22:28
Speaker
And they say, I want a bit of that too. So I think making sure that you keep it separate for the areas that need to be separate, but that you align for the areas that need be aligned and then crucially fill the other pieces, there will be learnings and benefits that you'll get from doing online really, really well that you can then apply into your face-to-face core machine.
International Recruitment Strategies
00:22:48
Speaker
We've seen that really recently with student satisfaction and and student success and how they can engage more deeply with their learners. We've seen it with, you know, we do a pre-enrolment programme on our degree programmes.
00:22:59
Speaker
called Thrive, where students get study skills, English language support, various other things. And yeah know one of our partners has then taken that back into their core machine and would be very happy to just build up for their face-to-face students. So that to making sure that you are different where you need to be different and and and running a different machine where you need to be doing that, but then also aligning and driving towards where the university wants to be for 2035, I think both are important.
00:23:26
Speaker
Got you. So on the surface, given this, you know, i guess the simplistic understanding is the UK online market is five years, maybe 10 years behind the US market.
00:23:39
Speaker
So what we've seen in the US, maybe without all the politics, I don't know, because we've had huge politics around um and regulatory efforts. But the UK, the best way to think of it is a five to 10 year delay in what you're going through.
00:23:54
Speaker
But could you describe what part of that ah what part of that mental model works and where is it different? How is the UK market different from the US?
00:24:04
Speaker
Great question. So certainly in terms of the number of institutions that have major online suites, I'd say we're definitely, know, five years behind might be about right. You know, um every university in the US, every major university in the US has a serious suite of online degree programs. That's not the case in the UK today.
00:24:23
Speaker
So there is definitely an evolution that's going on, which, you know, kind of fits into your, fits into your model. I think where it's different in more complicated ways is in two respects.
00:24:37
Speaker
The first that our student body is very, very different to the US student body. um You will know the but data better than me, Phil, but the last I saw was 84% of online students in the US are studying with the university within their state.
00:24:52
Speaker
I mean, that is an incredibly high number. And the 16%, by the way, the other 16%, they're overwhelmingly studying with the university within the United States, right? So yes these guys are doing very, very little international marketing recruitment activity.
00:25:09
Speaker
In the UK, that's fundamentally different. you know Most of our partners at Skilled, um you know roughly anywhere between 40% and 50% of students will be domestic. but the majority are usually international. The majority? The majority, absolutely, absolutely. Because you know we're just not big enough as a country, right? like We've got 70 million people with the size of Texas or whatever.
00:25:31
Speaker
And so you need to be international from day one. Without the barbecue. but Without exactly. Well, yeah, without the barbecue and several other things. But so it' it's like, you know, it's it's just different. um And that's something I love about our system here. You know, like we are in, yeah know, 120, 130 markets for most of our partnerships pretty quickly. And that just creates a whole different set of challenges, opportunities, dynamics around geo-targeting, around channels, around pricing, around scholarships, around
00:26:04
Speaker
ah you know just how you really micro target to find these students because there are massive numbers of them. And the opportunity I would say for US universities right now is that you you've got the demographic situation, you've got visa challenges, all of that kind of stuff.
00:26:18
Speaker
But there is a demand side which is saying, I want more US s and UK degree programs. Please offer them up. um And even for- international demand for US and UK degree programs.
00:26:31
Speaker
Exactly. Exactly. I mean, these are students, and and this is the other thing, actually. The demand side has changed in the last 10 years. That's really worth we're digging into, actually, Bill. You're right. Because, you know, that demand side has grown in wealth, has grown in ambition,
00:26:47
Speaker
has grown in its desire to stay, by the way, within its countries, because yeah they've often got 6%, 7%, 8% growth rather than um slightly more anemic growth, certainly in the UK.
00:26:59
Speaker
um And so they want to stay in their country. They don't want the accommodation costs. They want stay close to their kids. um But they want to study with big global brands. They want to study with the top one or two markets in the world.
00:27:11
Speaker
But they can't travel. They can't leave their kids. They can't leave their jobs. and giving them the opportunity to work out and learn is something that I feel we have a responsibility to do. So part of this, ah so one way to look at it with your current company with Skilled is not so much that Skilled's expertise is international student ah recruitment for online and that's unique and that's your niche.
00:27:35
Speaker
It's to say, no, the UK market, that's what it's like. That's the environment that you came up in in the past five years as a company and well obviously longer personally.
00:27:48
Speaker
um But now that you you know how to do that, and so now you're talking to U.S. universities to say, hey, you guys are starting to look at this international student recruitment in a different way.
00:28:02
Speaker
So to a certain degree, i but it sounds like you're making a bet is coming into the U.S. market. You're making a bet that in this case, the UK is five years ahead of the US in the concept of international student ah recruitment. Is that accurate?
00:28:18
Speaker
Undoubtedly. I mean, we we've been doing international online recruitment for a lot, lot longer longer than the US. US is, I'd say, fairly early on that on that journey. And, you know, we didn't intend to do this, by the way. You know, we thought we would just keep serving yeah UK universities for the next X number of years. But for the for the student population, yeah they see us in a very similar way. Right. They see they want to study with ah a kind of brand that is from the UK or US.
00:28:47
Speaker
um And that's where the wonderful parallels between the US and UK is so beautiful, right? and That's why I Yeah, they're going both ways. and Yeah, exactly. and But they they they there's a prestige, right, that comes with studying and having a qualification from one of the top one or two markets in the world.
00:29:03
Speaker
And if you look at the demographics, actually, and i always look at this from the student perspective, by the way, rather than university perspective. But if you look at the demographics on skilled programs, you know, 94% of these students are in work whilst they're studying.
00:29:16
Speaker
um 57% are female. ah you know The overwhelming majority are kind of you know in these parts of the world that have just got amazing growth going on and some real kind of dynamics changing. um you and And the average age is 37.
00:29:34
Speaker
So they are these amazing people who are looking for that master's degree um and are sitting there in the Middle East or sub-Saharan Africa or Southeast Asia And they're saying, look, help me out here.
00:29:48
Speaker
And so, yeah, we're we're, you know, we've obviously announced our first partnership in the US, which, know, it's going really well. It is a really beautiful relationship. You know, we will announce one more you know, fairly shortly. um But we've always been really clear. We only want to partner with the right institutions that want to do this well, want to adapt their systems and processes and that kind of thing in the right way. Well, let me check you on the U.S. because you mentioned something about it wasn't your intention of going to the U.S.
00:30:17
Speaker
Quite often when I talk to European ed tech companies that are coming to the US, if we're on, well, they are honest, it's a bigger financial market, you know a larger number of customers, a lot more money that flows through and that's so it's a deliberate strategy to come to the US.
00:30:34
Speaker
You're saying that wasn't the original plan. So take these two university, you just announced the American University deal. Are they looking, like, are they already convinced that they need international student bodies and they come looking and they talk to you or you evangelizing the concept with them? So who's approaching whom?
00:30:54
Speaker
we We have done zero proactive you know kind of brand building, if you like, you know, in in the United States. um There are wonderful people. You know, i've got to give a shout out to Paul LeBlanc, for example, who, you know, has been ah a wonderful friend and supporter for a long time. And there's various other people like that who've been, you really wonderful kind of guides on on this kind of thing. But we have really sought to, you serve British universities. That was the reason why we did this. and and And just to kind of take a step back for two seconds on that bill, the model that we have, right, and kind of offering up that choice of services, responsibilities, business models, that kind stuff, it is less financially attractive, as you know well, than the revenue share model, right? Like the revenue share model, you do very, very well, right? Years three and four through to year 10.
00:31:44
Speaker
um This is less attractive, right? I'm very open about that, very straightforward about that. um yeah my investor friends and people like that kind of kick me all the time why why are you doing it in that way it's the right thing to do and and and the rest of it will figure itself out but it's the right thing to do and What then happens is you show that you could do it for these British universities and the US guys are like, you know what, you can do this for brands not dissimilar to mine.
00:32:14
Speaker
We now need to do this because of all the reasons we've chatted about briefly. And yeah, we don't, if you compare some of those partnerships, the US and UK partnerships, They're pretty much the same.
00:32:26
Speaker
and The mechanics them are the same. the ah the The kind of challenges that you run into are the same. The opportunities for just shaking up the product and the proposition are exactly the same.
00:32:39
Speaker
The concerns amongst academics are the same. um yeah It's beautiful to see so many similarities as well as nuances and differences. in certain areas, but
Navigating University Partnerships and Cultural Dynamics
00:32:49
Speaker
it's so similar.
00:32:50
Speaker
and um And I think that's a beautiful thing for us to celebrate, frankly. you know like All of our universities are obviously different. They have their own unique quirks, their own USPs, and we have to bring that alive to the post-grad online student.
00:33:03
Speaker
But you know seeing um the fact that you know we can be so many miles apart, but still such beautiful, distinctive, quirky universities, that makes me super, super happy.
00:33:17
Speaker
And it's interesting, and I'll just wrap up with this thought, because like I said, ah there's a simplistic model saying UK online is five years behind the US. But in reality, there are significant differences that we're talking about with international students. And particularly in that area, we have the reverse happening, where the UK is likely five to 10 years ahead of the US in this regard. So it's feeding back and forth.
00:33:43
Speaker
And I know, and then... but You make another great point that the UK and Australia, there's a lot of tie-ins between them. So this is, see, this gets back to why you're the executive producer of the podcast, not just the introduction, but it's hitting a lot of the same things. And the reason we wanted to do this is to look at multiple angles into online education. So this has been a fascinating conversation. Appreciate your time and talking about this fascinating subject.
00:34:14
Speaker
So thank you. It's pleasure, Phil. Thanks for everything you do. It's a genuine pleasure to chat.
00:34:24
Speaker
Welcome back and I hope you enjoyed the interview. And um yeah, so initial thoughts, um anything that ah big takeaways that you guys had from the interview.
00:34:35
Speaker
So, so I, I thought it was really interesting and a great first, first interview because there was lots that I disagreed with or that I had issues with. So it's, it actually gives us something to argue about because I fear that we've become alike each other.
00:34:52
Speaker
which is very frightening.
00:34:55
Speaker
But, you know, i there there are definitely some some areas where I like, I think I disagree. And I feel guilty saying that because he obviously knows a lot more about the the UK setting than I do. but But certainly there's some issues there, for example, about the role of the pandemic, about so sort of some of the timing,
00:35:14
Speaker
about how you break it down, those sorts of things. But certainly a great interviewer. And I want to second the recommendation for Martin Bean as the second interviewer. Well, we're going to be seeing him in ah in a month, month and a half. we Maybe we should line that up while we're together.
00:35:32
Speaker
So but before we get Neil's thoughts, I want to check to see. Well, first of all, on the disagreements, part of what I liked is it was very much a good conversation with Roger. It wasn't overly promotional. And we've all talked. That's one of the problems with interviews on podcasts these days, particularly education podcasts.
00:35:53
Speaker
But really, you get different perspectives. You get what he has to say. So I think that ah he would appreciate the conversation for me and see if you're talking the same thing.
00:36:04
Speaker
ah Certainly in the U.S. and I think in the U.K., I saw the pandemic as a net positive for online education. And we've talked about that, how it's actually increased adoption and made it a greater opportunity to expand. Is that the element that you meant there?
00:36:21
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. You know, I certainly do see his point about how it could put people off because there was that emergency remote teaching, which could be mistaken for online learning, which was kind of less than optimal, but given the two-week time frame, pretty darn awesome that people pulled it off.
00:36:39
Speaker
But I think overall, it really awoke woke up people's perspective about what is possible for online learning. So I see it as a net positive as well. And even in the UK, because, you know, for right into 2022, I was working at Gartner. So i was working with a lot of yeah UK clients.
00:36:57
Speaker
So, and you'll notice we we we now have language warnings on the podcast with Darn. Neil, what were your takeaways from the interview? My mother listens to this, so I'll be very careful.
00:37:09
Speaker
um oh No, I i think um we we can get into the pandemic point because I i have a interesting i probably slightly different take on that as well.
00:37:20
Speaker
um i think I think it was just interesting because I think it touched on ah bunch of things that I think we've talked about before. i think, although you didn't kind of get into it really explicitly, there was that kind of um theme around an OPM or an online education company kind of unbundling services and that being the direction of travel.
00:37:40
Speaker
um both in terms of the kind of, well, in terms of the kind of necessity of what universities want. And I think that' was always an interesting debate because, you know, you, I think you tend to see,
00:37:52
Speaker
certain companies kind of pushing that angle and I think we've all expressed some reservation as that being the singular direction of travel but I think it's an interesting thing to discuss relative to that and also relative to the kind of viability of OPMs.
00:38:11
Speaker
um I think the other interesting thing was just the kind of discussion around um whether you approach online education as I think you use the term kind of skunk works, Phil, you do it off to the side versus the kind of embedded into the institution. I think that's also an and interesting discussion and and debate and I think that has nuance to it.
00:38:32
Speaker
And I think the last one, which I think is just um relevant to both geographies really in terms of expanding and growing online education, um is the kind of international online angle and what you do about that and the relative maturity and of our kind of respective nations, I think, on that front.
00:38:52
Speaker
Yeah, the Skunk Works conversation was interesting to me. it actually caught me a little bit off guard. But I mean, that's that's what's good about an interview and getting different perspectives. Because, i mean, if you really look at some of the core value of an OPM, it is to get it away from the bureaucracy of universities that can't get out of their own way. That is one of the value propositions.
00:39:16
Speaker
And I think it's a huge value proposition that I think got lost a little bit in that conversation in a way in Rajay emphasizing expertise. But I see, i mean, I just in watching universities work with with OPMs, it's that getting over inertia that is such a huge thing that the OPMs bring to the table.
00:39:36
Speaker
Well, that gets to the timeline thing, because I see the point of you got to be careful of skunk works if you keep it long term, because then you have to ask, well, how is this benefiting the university? So there's sort of an idea of, well, it makes sense, not as a singular direction of travel, as you're saying, Neil, but to go with a skunk works type of separated at the beginning. But over time, how do you benefit the larger institution? And I think that That issue of where in the life cycle of a university ah the models make sense and how they shift over time is something that we ought to discuss further.
00:40:15
Speaker
Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, funnily enough, had a conversation today with someone who was essentially saying that um they they regretted not taking learnings from a previous OPM relationship. um But I think my question around that relationship orientation perhaps from a company is kind of what's in it for them to upskill a university does a university kind of have the bandwidth to be able to kind of explicitly take on the learnings through the partnership as well and that's quite apart from whether you should or shouldn't look to embed or
00:40:53
Speaker
keep off to one side and ring fence. um So I think, again, it's, it's, I guess it's an interesting pitch and a proposition for a company coming into a university and probably um a little bit distinct in the market over here. um But I, I don't think it's black and white. And that's not how I look at it.
00:41:16
Speaker
The other thing that really struck me, as you can tell from the conversation is sort of the The timeframe issue, like it's the UK market like the US online market just five to 10 years after the fact. And the point being made about international student recruitment for online programs, you actually have the reverse case that the UK online market is, looks like it might be ahead of the US market. and We might see movement here.
00:41:44
Speaker
So you have this dynamic of, which country is at which part of its evolution, and you sort of see both, particularly with the difference around international student recruitment. So that was one of the more interesting insights that I got from the interview.
00:42:01
Speaker
Yeah, that was fascinating, but it's going to be hard to really compare because, like, the world is upside down now because of all the changes that are happening in the U.S. s and the U.K. and Australia and Canada around international students, but particularly the U.S. right now.
00:42:15
Speaker
um Yeah, I think that's really interesting. I mean, to be honest, the kind of more seasoned online education people over here have always kind of presented that juxtaposition with the US being a lot more domestic focus for online.
00:42:30
Speaker
um And sometimes that's been relative to US companies coming over here. um and maybe looking to international markets. But there is, i mean, there's a good legacy of distance and online education over here internationally, you know, University of London, one of the oldest distance learning institutions, but then you have, you know, universities like Liverpool and Leicester and Manchester and Harriet, what have built up significant online international students in the past. Some of those have kind of reduced, some of those have kind of held steady. so
00:43:01
Speaker
I think he's right to say that there's been a stronger legacy of online international student recruitment over here, but there are still plenty of institutions over here that are way behind in that respect. And there are...
00:43:16
Speaker
more complicated reasons that don't necessarily present themselves um as to why those universities have done well internationally online and ah um I think that's a general area that there's not a lot of knowledge about. It's not It's not simply due to institutions getting good at Google in India or, you know, it's more, there's more factors behind recruitment successes internationally than just digital marketing, say, for for example.
00:43:51
Speaker
ah Just the need for it. And in other words, the argument that, hey, the UK is a lot smaller. We need to have a broader student population. His argument was more than that, but that it makes sense that the UK was stronger on this from the beginning.
00:44:08
Speaker
um Did that but resonate with you from what you've seen?
00:44:14
Speaker
It resonates now. um It definitely resonates now because I think it's universities are running out headroom, so they're kind of looking um for international. So it's definitely a much hotter topic now for fur for the for the kind of obvious reasons. um I think...
00:44:33
Speaker
In general, and I'm not sure if this is um ah kind of a Commonwealth Empire legacy thing, i think in general, yeah UK universities have probably been a ah bit more orientated internationally.
00:44:45
Speaker
um So i would I would probably look to that. than to the fact that we're a small nation and therefore we need to go international um to make up the numbers or, you know, and he didn't say that, but, you know, I think it's more about our country's orientation and legacy than it is about, um yeah, I don't know. But then that's... So you might argue it's not really international. These are our locales across the world anyway ah that you're recruiting from. they They would argue that it was international.
00:45:17
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, look, i I'm getting into dodgy territory here. We're not going to debate colonialism. but But, I mean, if you look at the University of London, then, you know, there are there is you know there are relationships there that are built on, you know, the past really. This is a university that did just distance learning, I think, was it 1870-something?
00:45:39
Speaker
I can't remember when they first did the first distance learning. it a shorthand course, wasn't it, or something of that nature? Yeah, think might be. I feel like it was in Mauritius or Sri Lanka. I can't remember. was somewhere like that. University of London colleagues will tell me what the right thing is. But yeah, so that definitely relates to that. But yeah, I think now online, recruiting internationally for online is just increasingly important.
00:46:08
Speaker
I don't want to break the flow of the conversation, but perhaps we could quickly just clarify... that we're talking about a different kind of online recruitment than the sort of franchisee beacon education emeritus Stafford Global kind of thing. Well, I think you're signing up to to provide a pithy differentiation analysis.
00:46:29
Speaker
And the reason why I sort of was ah you know part of the way into into the interview is like, oh, yeah, no, I was misunderstanding there. So, you know, for a while now, universities in the U.S. and the U.K. have been doing ah this kind of education that Phil and I have struggled to come up with a pithy name for, ah but you know, sort of more franchised,
00:46:53
Speaker
ah working with ah a third party company to offer a degree completely in another country. So like an emeritus or a Stafford Global or Beacon Education. um This is just bringing international students into regular courses, online courses ah that are, that are run. And so you'll have a mix of different of people from different countries in the courses, a regular one.
00:47:18
Speaker
Yeah, I i mean, that that's one flavour of it. But i think there are I think it kind of goes back to a point I made earlier in that when you look at some of the institutions over here that have decent numbers of online international students, you know, it's it's not exclusively, but there are factors like what you referred to, Morgan, that there's online programs being offered ah as franchise provision through specific providers in countries.
00:47:46
Speaker
There's relationships with organizations that you mentioned like Stafford Global. There's other kind of relationships that one university I think has a relationship with a training centre that's in in a particular locality. So that's what I was getting at when I was saying the factors behind online international recruitment aren't just simply going to the open market internationally to recruit.
00:48:09
Speaker
There are often a range of different factors that aren't apparent behind some of the... So it's really a mix of things. Yeah, i don't think that's that's not I don't think that's what the proposition that Rajay's putting forward, but there are often, you know, when you think about the legacy of but have UK universities and some of those that have strengths, there are reasons behind that.
00:48:31
Speaker
and And some of those reasons are kind of in-country presence and
Entering New Markets: Challenges and Opportunities
00:48:35
Speaker
operations. They're not simply how we've got really good at marketing online degrees in Singapore, say, for example.
00:48:42
Speaker
ah So one final aspect I would add to this that was interesting and and keeping in mind, this was an interview with Rajay, not necessarily an interview with the CEO of skilled education.
00:48:56
Speaker
However, there is the aspect that they've established themselves in the UK and they're entering the US market. And so it's not just timeframe of who's doing things first. There's also the, what this happens with ed tech providers and OPM providers going each direction.
00:49:16
Speaker
It is more common of us providers being seen as going into other countries, but you have to say Pearson, UK company, um when they bought Mbanet and created their OPM business, that was sort of the reverse case as well.
00:49:34
Speaker
a British company, even though it was run out of the U.S., it was owned by Pearson. ah But on the pure edtech outside of the OPM space, you don't see a whole lot of this. You got some AI companies out of Scandinavia that have had an impact here in the U.S., but it also just introduced the countries crossing the Atlantic and in both directions angle for it, which I found interesting.
00:50:04
Speaker
So it'll be worth tracking how skilled education does with this move. Yeah, and I think, i think um you know, the couple of things that you've already mentioned feel to me like they speak well to what I see and hear from a distance of the U.K., a U.S. market around that kind of sense of unbundling, being more desirable, whether it's more viable is kind of another question and desirable across the piece, and the and online international students. so I think there's kind of a couple of points that resonated probably with some of the discussions that are happening in the U.S. perhaps.
00:50:38
Speaker
You know, we're not shifting to a pod ah to an interview format, but I do have to say it's ah interesting to be able to allow us to listen, learn from an outside perspective, and comment on it. So thanks for this um episode. Thank you, Rajay, for the interview.
00:50:55
Speaker
And we'll be back with you after this episode to talk again about the LMS and VLE market.