Who’s Paying Your Education Consultant?

“We like to use a local education consultant we know,” I was told by an employee at a relocation management company in Dubai, “because we don’t have to pay her.” I blinked.

“Who does pay her?” I asked, confused.

“The schools pay her, of course.  Who else would?” she responded, obviously confused by my confusion.

I really didn’t know where to begin, and my “oh dear, that’s not good!” was both horrified and understated.  

And, of course, I did know but had allowed myself to forget that, in many parts of the world, it’s common practice for “education consultants” and “agents,” who sometimes also find housing for relocating families, to be paid by schools for bringing them students.  I’ve been reminded recently that this is the norm in many parts of Asia and the Middle East, for example, where a go-between is paid by a school and not by the engaging family or corporate client.

The Independent Education Consultants Association (IECA) is an organization that sets best practices in the field of Education Consulting.  Although US based, it includes members from around the world, and it has been in existence for almost 50 years.

In order to be a professional member of IECA, an education consultant needs to apply, show proof of professionalism (e.g. list how many schools they have visited in the past several years), specify an area of expertise (e.g. college consulting or “International” or “K-12”) and supply references.  Once accepted, members are expected to continue to visit schools regularly, to participate in professional development, and to remain completely current with school and education trends.  In short, IECA sets the gold standard in our field.

Although a company cannot apply for membership, and therefore Bennett is not an IECA company, many of our consultants belong to IECA and, as an organization, we follow the “Principles of Good Practice” as put forth by IECA.  IECA is concerned with consultant competence and with the ethics of education consulting—everything from client confidentiality to what constitutes an appropriate consultant relationship with a school or college or university.

An important tenet of IECA’s Principles of Good Practice is the following:  Members neither solicit nor accept compensation from Universities/Schools/Programs for placing or attempting to place students with them. They scrupulously avoid behavior that might be construed as soliciting or accepting compensation.

In essence, and for obvious reasons, we are not permitted to accept payment from schools for supplying them with students! Imagine that I am supposedly providing objective consulting to a family, but I know that if I send them to school X, the school will pay me 10% of the student’s first year of tuition, but if I send them to school Y, I won’t receive anything. In such an instance, how could I be relied upon to keep the best fit for the student as my sole focus?

To clarify, the practice of paying “consultants” or “agents” to bring them students is not a practice that all private or international schools follow. On the contrary. Depending on the location, the international and private schools with well-established reputations do not hire people to bring them students; their issue is often that they don’t have enough spots for the many students who seek entry, and they are forced to turn students away. So, not only do they not need to hire agents, but as not-for-profit institutions, they would typically decline such arrangements.

In many markets, however, where for-profit schools are increasing and for whom growth plans are aggressive, filling seats quickly is a top priority.  And in those instances, go-between agents are often compensated for bringing students to the door.

Whether you use Bennett or another partner to support your relocating families with school selection, I encourage you to ask them what their policy is around receiving payment from education establishments for placement of students. And if you are looking for quality education consulting, a process that puts finding the best-fit environment for a student as its highest priority, I would suggest that your education consultant partner be hired by the family or its employer, and not by schools.  Whomever you choose, be sure you know who they’re working for.

Warmly,

Elizabeth, CEO

Over the years, Bennett International Education Consultancy has worked with hundreds of corporations across the globe, many of them Fortune 500 companies, providing domestic and international school advisement & placement services - preschool through university - to the dependents of relocating employees. In addition to education placement, our team provides customized consulting for corporations with a range of education issues: education policy writing & benchmarking, tuition studies, group move advisement & planning, and remote education solutions.