The world experts on international school enrollment management are coming to Egypt in May 2022. The Enrollment Management Association (EMA) is offering workshops tailored to top-level school leaders, and you can register free through Newton Education Services now. (Choose between registration for sites in East Cairo or West Cairo.)
EMA is the largest professional group of its kind in the elementary/secondary school arena. They have 25,000 members representing over 1,300 schools worldwide, including Jordan’s renowned King’s Academy. A nonprofit with many millions in annual revenue from their trademark SSAT test series, EMA is in a great position to share their very specifically focused knowledge, says John Williamson, Director of Global Development.
“We focus just on enrollment and benchmarking strategies,” comments Williamson. “Not dormitories or social issues but everything school heads and business officers need to know about building a healthy enrollment.”
Why School Heads?
Healthy enrollment requires strategic leadership at the highest level. Williamson sometimes encounters school owners and directors who want results without that investment. For example, he describes a school head who fired her enrollment director abruptly, justifying it on the grounds that, “He wasn’t getting kids!”
“Yes, it’s their job to get kids,” says Williamson. “But it’s also your job to train them to get the right kids.”
Professional Support
EMA can help on many levels. For instance they produce “cutting-edge professional online training on a range of issues, adding 18 to 20 modules a year,” says Williamson. These modules will be helpful to schools with varied levels of resources. “For example,” he continues, “there’s one on how to make a recruitment video when you have no budget, making it on your phone to mimic professional production.”
The SSAT is EMA’s best known product. “There’s no connection to the SAT whatsoever except that they operate the same, as a comprehensive test,” says Williamson. Typically the SSAT is used internationally as a benchmarking test rather than for admissions, and can be valuable in tracking student progress. There are three series of SSAT tests, for elementary, middle, and secondary schools. All use “the same qualifiers and quantifiers,” says Williamson, so unlike some other tests they can measure progression across levels, from the 3rd grade to the 12th (or year 13 in the British system). “Say for instance your 8th grade is not doing so well on the tests; maybe something is going on in the 7th grade curriculum,” explains Williamson.
EMA also has a standardized online school application that is free for members to use with their students, along with many resources. “It’s great for schools who for instance are part of a chain, helping all work together with a single application and benchmarking for the whole group.”
Today: Truly International
Since 2020 EMA has become strongly committed to true internationalism. Two full-time staff work only on international issues, two more are devoted to member success, and another to professional development. “It’s a totally new organization on the global front,” reports Williamson. “We now have a team and a budget that truly allows us to support our international schools.”
EMA supports international schools not only through staff at their headquarters in the United States but through their widespread membership. “I had one school owner tell me she thought, ‘well this seems as though it might be more American,'” reports Williamson. “So she put in a question on our community discussion board and she was getting answers from Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Vietnam…..She pulled something from here, something from there, and it addressed her issue.” A monthly Global Discussion Group and Annual Conference timed for non-U,S, school leaders serve a similar purpose.
With several EMA member schools in Egypt already, Williamson is eager to continue spreading awareness of his group in the country as well as the broader region. The MENA is the only region for which two EMA trips are planned this year. Workshops similar to what is being offered in Egypt were held this past fall in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia and were very well received. EMA has since contracted with the Saudi “new green Dubai” city project of NEOM to provide exclusive support and SSAT benchmarking to its 60 new schools.
The Workshops
Williamson expects the workshops in Egypt to draw extensively on EMA’s strengths. Content will focus on best practices and training of school professionals, with emphasis on how to win enrollment and stand out from the competition, in addition to best practices in benchmarking.
EMA will present highlights from its “RIDE” report on global enrollment management and international schools, along with information on EMA programs. Much of the afternoon will center around a small group approach, with brainstorming of common enrollment problems. The workshops will last about an hour and a half, with time following for networking and refreshments. They will be held on Tuesday, May 17 in East Cairo, and on Wednesday, May 18 in West Cairo.
Please contact info@newton-prep.com, for more information, or complete the workshop registration form here for East Cairo, and here for West Cairo.