The president of Shahid Beheshti University (SBU) presented a speech at the Iranian International Student Recruitment Festival which was hosted by Tarbiat Modares University.
In his speech at the festival, Dr. Seyed Mahmoud Reza Aghamiri considered the recruitment of international students an important issue that most universities in the world deal with and seek to benefit from this 300-billion-dollar trade.
Stating that there are five million international students in the world, two percent of whom are refugee students, he added: “We should also use this opportunity. While there are one million empty seats in Iranian universities, we must provide the ground to recruit international students, which requires tools to be achieved.”
Dr. Aghamiri said: “Our approach to the issue of recruiting international students is a bit different because we also pay attention to cultural issues. With these two views, i.e., material and cultural in mind and in order to take advantage of the presence of international students in the country, universities are required to provide the necessary mechanisms; this is a scientific and cultural diplomacy.”
President of SBU considered three quality factors, i.e., strong scientific and educational programs, creating economical conditions for students and finally facilitating consular and administrative accesses as the most important tools to recruit international students, which are partly related to universities and partly to outside the universities.
He added: “If we want to recruit students, we must understand the language of the young applicants, talk to them in that language and create a beautiful image of our environment in their minds. One of the important tools in this regard is the virtual space. It is necessary to create a branding and identity of our own. Today, the website of the university can be a strong channel for communication between people and institutions that are in charge of admitting students; an up-to-date, optimized and compatible website that users can easily access.”