How Counsellors in China Are Shaping Study Abroad Demand
Read More
By Deeksha Kamath, ICEF
Training and professional development have always been integral to working in international education. A people-centred sector that is built on relationships, it is supported by individuals who continue to build knowledge and practical capability as their roles evolve.
Agents, counsellors, admissions staff, partnership managers, and other professionals in international education often enter the sector through adjacent fields. As a result, many build their expertise on the job, learning through experience, mentoring, and exposure to different situations while performing their roles.
Moreover, as the international education sector is particularly vulnerable to change, from shifting policy requirements to evolving student preferences, professional competence is shaped less by a single credential and more by how effectively knowledge is updated and applied in practice. This ongoing learning is often described as Continuing Professional Development (CPD).
Continuing Professional Development refers to the process of learning throughout your career to maintain and improve your professional knowledge and skills. It is learning that is intentional, role-relevant, and reflected on or applied in practice.
CPD is particularly pertinent for the international education sector, where professionals are expected to quickly and efficiently navigate changes in visa policy, quality assurance requirements, recruitment channels, digital systems, and institution strategy. When approached in a systematic manner, it is a means of keeping pace with these demands, rather than relying solely on past experience.
At its core, CPD promotes high standards across the industry and supports professional growth. As an individual, it helps you to build on existing strengths, identify and address skill gaps, improve performance, and ultimately influence the quality of advice and support provided to students.
Since CPD is built on the idea of continuous development, it can take many forms. Some learning is structured, while other learning is informed or self-directed. Structured CPD includes formal learning activities like online courses, training programmes and workshops, whereas unstructured CPD includes informal or self-directed activities such as mentoring, peer learning, engaging with sector research, listening to podcasts or reading articles.
For example, is reading an article considered CPD?
The same principle applies to podcasts, webinars, courses and other forms of learning.
To better engage with CPD, you can reflect on the following questions :
Reflecting on these questions each time you engage with educational or informative material can help you maximise the CPD value.
There are several ways that CPD can be recorded and recognised, with varying levels of formality. Most forms of unstructured CPD are unaccredited, which means that the responsibility to document what has been learned, often through a CPD record or similar log, sits with you.
On the other hand, accredited CPD is learning that has been externally quality-assured and mapped to a recognised framework. Where this is the case, learning may be awarded a formal qualification or CPD credits (sometimes referred to as CPD hours), which quantify learning in a consistent way.
CPD credits usually represent one hour of learning per credit and represent the achievement of specific outcomes. When added to a CPD record, credits show development across different areas of competence, such as leadership, business practice, data and technology, or student advising. Where credits are issued within recognised frameworks, they may also be transferable across organisations, supporting professional mobility.
Advising students, managing agent relationships, approving partnerships, or interpreting compliance requirements all involve judgement calls, often in situations where guidance is evolving or incomplete. CPD supports this responsibility by helping you stay informed, reflect on your practice, and update your understanding as expectations change.
CPD strengthens your ability to analyse changing conditions, question assumptions, and avoid relying on past experience alone in markets that may no longer behave the same way. In complex, cross‑border environments, this ongoing development supports more confident, evidence‑based decision‑making.
Since many roles in international education lack a fixed qualification pathway, it is important to develop your competence through experience and on-the-job training. Structured, recorded CPD evidences your growth in skills, showing that you are potentially ready to take on more senior roles.
In some professions, such as healthcare and law, ongoing professional development is mandated through formal licensing or annual CPD requirements. While international education has not historically operated this way, expectations around professionalism, transparency, and quality are becoming more clearly articulated across the sector through frameworks such as the AQF in the UK and ESOS in Australia.
While these frameworks do not prescribe a specific pathway for professional development, they place greater emphasis on demonstrable knowledge, ethical practice, and informed decision‑making. In this context, CPD provides a practical way to show how professional capability is being maintained and strengthened over time.
Whether learning is formal or informal, accredited or self‑directed, CPD provides a way to think more intentionally about professional growth and to evidence that development when it matters. In a sector defined by complexity and change, it provides a way to maintain confidence in decision‑making, demonstrate capability, and support sustainable career progression.
