Schools and Universities
Cross-cultural experience provides a unique opportunity for students to develop their skills and enrich their learning, producing career-ready professionals and responsible global citizens.
0+
students engaged
0+
partner organisations
0+
schools and universities
0+
countries
With over 70 years of experience in designing robust student mobility frameworks, delivering quality and ethical cross-cultural experiences, and mobilising hundreds of volunteers every year, AVI is Australia’s premier secondary and tertiary education mobility specialists.
Through international placements, whether in-person or virtual, students gain a distinct perspective and sense of self, while building people-to-people connections and deepening relationships between Australia and partners in the Indo-Pacific region, enhancing their future potential and ultimately, employability.
Why Outsource Mobilisation?
The education sector has dramatically reshaped its student experience approach due to the complex challenges presented by COVID. For those schools and universities offering overseas opportunities, the shifting duty of care requirements mean constant upskilling of in-house staff.
We’ve drawn on student and university feedback, current global trends and our experience mobilising hundreds of volunteers every year to design a framework that builds on your current capacity, strengthens student bonds, meets or exceeds duty of care obligations, creates pathways to employment and leverages expert resources.
The best part about our new framework is you can pick and choose the elements you need based on your specific requirements to help you achieve more with less.
We also have a comprehensive understanding of federal government funding initiatives for the Australian Higher Education sector, such as New Colombo Plan, and can provide support in navigating grants and scholarships.
You can be confident that you and your students are well looked after and learning objectives are met by leveraging:
- AVI’s experience in program development and partnerships to design culturally appropriate programs that support existing community initiatives and safeguarding to prevent voluntourism.
- AVI’s pro-active approach to risk management. We know how to keep students and partners safe in complex international settings.
- Decades of experience and a high reputation supported by long-standing partnerships with Australian universities and a proven track record as the lead delivery partner of DFAT’s flagship program.
- Over 1200 partnerships across 29 countries and all underpinned by respect for the universal protection of human rights and a do no harm approach.
- A choice of services from program design, vetting of partners, pre-departure preparation, in-country support, program learning and evaluation to logistic, and incident management.
Student Mobility Offering
Understanding Your Needs
Whether it’s to build in-house capability, review existing policies and processes or launch a new student mobility program, we work with you to understand your needs and objectives.
Planning and Preparation
Choose the level of support you need to enhance current programs or develop new experiences for your students:
- Program design.
- Partner scoping and due diligence.
- Pre-departure preparation including face-to-face briefings and eLearning modules – AVI experienced practitioners deliver pre-departure training to hundreds of students and volunteers every year.
- Train-the-trainer workshops for trip leaders and mobility coordinators
- Student selection and onboarding.
- Risk Assessments
Our services are modular and adapted to your constraints, the experience and your institution’s expectations.
In Country Support
Heightened Duty of Care obligations mean increased workload for student mobility coordinators and academics alike. AVI can act as your local relay to provide on the ground support, pastoral care and risk and incident management, overseeing the safety and wellbeing of your students.
Return home
Coming home can sometimes be the hardest part of an international experience. Reflection workshops are a great way to guide students through their journey home, prepare them for possible reverse culture shock and help them maximise the learnings to support their academic and career journey on the longer term.
Program Evaluation
Monitoring, learning and evaluation is an essential component of successful mobility programs. AVI’s expertise in assessing complex projects can help you maximise learning outcomes and make your mobility offering stand out.
Our expertise in program promotion, recruitment, mobilisation, cross-cultural preparedness, in-country management, public diplomacy and return home debriefing means we are uniquely positioned to develop bespoke student mobility programs to suit a variety of educational needs.
An un-regulated industry has resulted in the emergence of numerous volunteer tourism or ‘voluntourism’ operators. Partnering with a ‘voluntourism’ provider can place your students at increased risk and supports practices and institutions that do harm in developing countries. As a member of the Australian Council for International Development, AVI meets the highest standards of quality in the development sector.
AVI is committed to ensuring student mobility programs are beneficial for students, schools, universities and the communities in which we work, meaning your program will be experience-rich, ethical and contribute to long-term sustainability.
Contact our Education Team
