Most schools’ internationalisation communications follow a common pattern: signing-ceremony photos, a list of partners, and generic phrases about integration.
The problem with this pattern is not that it is wrong, but that it says nothing. An outside reader learns nothing about where the school actually differs, and an agreement with no activity behind it looks exactly like an agreement that is running well.
This article explains why that pattern does not work, sets out four content principles, and describes how to organise the work so that communications no longer depend on events.
Why the current pattern does not work
The four reasons below explain this phenomenon.
The content talks about form, not about outcomes. A signed agreement is an administrative event. What the reader cares about is what that agreement produces.
It cannot be distinguished from anywhere else. When every school posts similar content, none of it makes an impression.
There are no specific people in it. The content talks about organisation to organisation, while the reader cares about human experience.
It only appears when there is an event. Event-driven communications create a disjointed image, and between events there is nothing.
The first reason is the foundational one. Shifting the focus from form to outcomes resolves most of the other three problems.
Four content principles
Principle one: tell the story of a specific change, not of an agreement. Instead of reporting that an agreement was signed with a foreign institution, state that from this semester, learners in a given field have a new module taught by someone, with such-and-such content.
Principle two: put people at the centre. A lecturer who has just returned from an exchange and what they changed in their teaching is far more persuasive than an announcement about an exchange programme.
Principle three: show the process, not just the result. The fact that a school spent two years building capacity before opening a module taught in English is a story worth telling, and it demonstrates seriousness.
Principle four: use verifiable figures. The number of modules adjusted, the number of learners who took part in exchanges, the number of lecturers who took part in international activities. Specific numbers are far more credible than generic phrases.
The third principle is the least applied and also creates the greatest difference. Most communications content shows only the result, leaving the reader unable to see the effort behind it.
Who internationalisation communications are for
Content needs to differ for each reader group, and using one piece of content for every group reduces its effectiveness with all of them.
Learners and their families at home. They care about what this brings to their studies, and whether it increases costs.
The internal staff. They care about how this affects their own work, and what opportunities it creates for themselves.
Potential partners abroad. They care about actual capacity, accreditation status, and the seriousness with which commitments are carried out.
Regulatory bodies and other stakeholders. They care about regulatory compliance and contribution to the broader system.
The second group is often overlooked entirely, even though it is the group that determines whether activities are actually carried out. Staff who do not understand why the school is doing these things will take part only superficially.
For the third group, content needs to be in English, specific, and backed by figures. A thin English-language introduction page is a weakness that many schools do not realise they have.
What should not be included in the content
The four categories of content below have the opposite of the intended effect.
Commitments about outcomes. Any statement implying that learners will achieve a particular result creates risk, as already noted in the content on admissions promotion.
Figures without a source. An impressive number that does not state how it was calculated will be questioned, and that undermines the credibility of the whole piece.
Direct comparisons with other institutions. This approach is less effective and creates an impression of insecurity.
Information about a partner that they have not agreed to have published. Many agreements contain clauses on this, and violating them causes serious damage to the relationship.
The last category is worth noting because it happens fairly often, out of enthusiasm. Confirming with the partner before publishing any content related to them should be a mandatory rule.
How to organise so as not to depend on events
The problem with event-driven communications is that between events there is no content. The four practices below create a steady flow of content.
Schedule content by quarter, not by event. Decide in advance which story each quarter will tell.
Build a habit of recording within the team. The people directly carrying out the activities are the best source of content, but they usually do not think to share it.
Make use of natural milestones. The start of a semester, when someone returns from an exchange, when a new module begins, when a course produces results.
Keep continuous records of material. Photos, notes, figures. Gathering these after the fact is always much harder than recording them as events happen.
The second practice is the most effective but takes time to establish. A simple mechanism, such as a shared channel for the team to share noteworthy items, is usually enough to get started.
Measuring effectiveness
Three indicators show whether communications are having an effect.
Questions from outside. The number and quality of questions received from potential partners, from families, and from learners.
The level of understanding among internal staff. This can be measured with a short annual survey asking whether they know what the school is doing in this area.
Content that gets picked up elsewhere. If a piece of content is cited or shared by other parties, that is a sign it has real value.
The second indicator is the most worth measuring and also the least measured. If staff themselves do not know what the school is doing, external communications have little to stand on.
Regarding a reference framework for internationalisation activities that a school can draw on when building content, the materials from The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) set out widely recognised principles and formats.
For figures to place your own results in a comparative context, data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is a source with a transparent methodology.
English-language content
This section deserves to be treated separately, since it is a common weakness and also an easy one to fix.
Do not translate Vietnamese content verbatim. International readers have different concerns and need different information. A literal translation is usually redundant in some parts and missing in others.
Four things potential partners look for. The school’s scale and structure; training programmes with specific descriptions; accreditation and recognition status; and existing international activities.
Clear contact information. Who is responsible for international cooperation, and how to reach them. It sounds simple, but many pages lack it.
Regular updates. An English-language page with information from several years ago gives the impression that international activity has stopped.
Language quality. Content with language errors affects assessments of the school’s overall competence, even though this is somewhat unfair.
This is a small investment, but it affects every potential partner’s first impression, since most of them will look at the school’s page before replying to a contact letter.
Who is responsible
How responsibility is assigned determines whether the content is sustained.
The international cooperation office owns the content, since they know what is happening.
The communications office handles format and distribution channels.
An approval process is needed for content related to partners or to commitments.
Someone needs to be ultimately responsible for whether content is published on schedule.
A common model that causes problems is handing everything to the communications office. They do not have the subject-matter knowledge, so they can only report on events, and that is precisely the cause of the pattern described at the start of this article.
A practical approach is for the international cooperation office to give the communications office a short list each quarter of what is worth telling, along with a contact for further questions. This approach requires no structural change yet still solves the problem of content sourcing.
This list also has a useful side effect: having to state each quarter what is worth telling forces the international cooperation office itself to look back at what the past quarter actually produced. Many organisations discover gaps through this simple exercise alone.
Every piece of communications content should lead the reader to an official source or a next verifiable action.
Summary
The signing-ceremony-photo-and-partner-list pattern says nothing, because an agreement with no activity behind it looks exactly like an agreement that is running well.
Shifting the focus from form to specific change, centred on people and backed by verifiable figures, resolves most of the problems with the current approach.
Internal staff are the reader group most often overlooked, even though they determine whether activities are carried out substantively or only for show.
Next Steps
Choose one internationalisation activity your school carried out in the past year and rewrite its content following the four principles above.
Comparing the rewrite with previously published content is usually enough to reveal the gap clearly, and that becomes the basis for adjusting the approach for future activities.
