2021 has been a year of innovation and growth at Candlefox.

We’ve launched new products and services, such as Workforce Training, our Course Navigator and Provider Dashboards. And this month, we’re excited to announce our Affiliate Program!

Over the past few months, we’ve set our sights on expanding the Candlefox Affiliate Program. The growth of our affiliate channel will help us reach a wider audience, enabling us to provide a higher volume of quality student leads to our education partners.

Our Affiliate Program strengthens the lead generation capabilities of our Education Marketplace. 

We partner with a selection of carefully curated partners to add depth to our existing marketing funnel and customer experience. Our partners help attract high-quality prospective students at all marketing funnel stages – including those just starting to investigate their options at the top of that funnel. 

These partners help increase the visibility of our Marketplace by driving targeted traffic to our subject pages or course listings. Student prospects then go on to submit enrolment enquiries.

Over one million career changers, upskillers and individuals returning to work visit our Marketplace every month. But we know there are more prospective students out there and we’re on a mission to connect with them.

Our affiliate partners are an extension of our core business. These affiliate relationships benefit all our clients, affiliates and students:

The quality of leads we deliver to our providers is the core focus of our Marketplace – and our Affiliate Program is no exception. We ensure all our affiliate partners are capable of supplying high-quality leads that education providers can easily convert into enrolments.

There are two critical components to our Affiliate Program: attracting the right partners and setting up performance campaigns.

The first step in any partnership is attracting the right collaborator. We do this through multiple channels, including:

We make sure we get to know each of our prospective partners well. We use a quality vetting process to ensure our affiliate partners can meet our expectations.

During this stage, we ensure our goals are well-aligned with their audience’s and that they can deliver high-quality student leads to our education partners.

Once we’ve established a common goal, we work with our partners to develop and implement bespoke solutions. 

We support our affiliates with tools and assets that enable them to present our content in a way that looks and feels like theirs. These include:

User experience is at the core of our program. We customise each solution depending on our partner’s platform and audience. We want prospective students to seamlessly navigate our Marketplace without jumping through multiple hurdles. 

We use the Impact platform to monitor and report on all of our affiliate activity, which gives the affiliates a transparent and simple way to understand what is performing and what isn’t.

We’ve experienced a multitude of successes already. However, in true Candlefox fashion, we aren’t stopping here. 

Over the next year, we’ll work on:

Our Affiliate Program represents an exciting opportunity for our business and education clients.

We look forward to sharing more good news about Candlefox products and services in the future. Sign up for our newsletter to get updates delivered to your inbox.

Battling declining student motivation and confidence to study since the onset of the pandemic has been no easy feat.

Following a turbulent year, providers are focused on seeking out opportunities to stand out from the crowd and boost their student enquiry volumes.

The education market is becoming increasingly competitive. Attracting students requires providers to understand the student journey and apply strategic marketing efforts to encourage conversions. This is where the Candlefox Education Marketplace comes into play.

Our Education Marketplace helps providers, like Learning People, with their student acquisition efforts whilst improving their brand visibility. 

In January 2021, we worked alongside James Farr from Learning People, to implement the ‘Subject Spotlight’ solution on coursesonline.co.uk. This solution increased their ‘share of voice’ – the percentage share of enquiries compared to competitors in a subject area – on our Marketplace by 120%.

Learning People is a leading digital skill specialising in training the next generation of digital workers. Having educated over 30,000 students globally, they are on a mission to empower people – of all skill levels and across all continents – to pursue a rewarding career in technology. 

Learning People helps students start a new career or accelerate their current one with exclusive access to award-winning training programs and placements within industry.

COVID-19, and the subsequent acceleration towards Industry 4.0, have resulted in technology-based skills shortages around the globe. 

Workplaces and industries are becoming increasingly digitised and automated; larger workforce percentages now prefer remote or flexible working arrangements. This means that workers, employers and governments are all quickly realising the importance of building digital capabilities. 

Technological-based skills enable workers to use emerging digital devices to create and share content, communicate and collaborate in remote teams, and access and manage online information securely.

“As we continue to scale our business and help economies fill the growing tech skills gap, we were challenged with increasing our student enquiry volumes whilst ensuring we maintained the quality,” says James Farr, Paid Media Manager at Learning People. 

“We were looking for a marketing partner that could deliver high-intent student prospects which we could easily convert in-house.” 

In addition, Farr wanted to ensure that the Learning People brand was front of mind to prospective students. “We wanted to make sure we not only stood out in the market but our brand was showcased in the subject areas that mattered.”

At Candlefox, we know the student segment. We specialise in driving traffic from active student prospects to our subject pages and convert high-intent student prospects into enquiries for our clients. 

Our Education Marketplace – a network of global websites including CoursesOnline – enables education providers to expand their student enquiry volumes whilst improving their brand discoverability.

To increase Learning People’s brand visibility within the student segment, we implemented the ‘Subject Spotlight’ solution.

The Subject Spotlight solution gives providers a competitive edge by:

Our subject pages are the most valuable real estate on our Marketplace, drawing the highest volume of traffic on our network. In addition, these pages receive over 150,000 monthly visits from students further down the enrolment funnel – students that demonstrate higher intent to enquire.

After an initial discovery call with Learning People, we executed a two-part Subject Spotlight solution.

Through our Subject Spotlight solution, Learning People received the exclusive top placement on the project management subject page. As seen in the image above, Learning People’s Prince2 Full Collection also secured the ‘Top Result’ placement. Top Spot or Top Result placements provide the most value for providers – our data indicates that a high percentage of enquiries originate from top ranked course listings. 

By sponsoring the Subject Spotlight solution on our network, Learning People were able to showcase their brand more prominently to project management student prospects and attract a higher volume of enquiries than their competitors.

Since January 2021, Learning People has invested in the Subject Spotlight solution for the project management category on our Marketplace. 

Our Marketplace enabled Learning People to attract and connect with a larger cohort of students. Since its implementation, Learning People have achieved some stellar results.

Comparing December 2020 to February 2021, they have seen:

These results are predicted to grow. Learning People will continue to reap the benefits of the Featured Provider and Top Spot solutions. 

Farr has been impressed with the impact of the Subject Spotlight solution on their performance on the Marketplace.

“We have seen positive results from the Subject Spotlight solution. We see the Candlefox team as an extension of our marketing team. We believe in their business model and have great confidence in our relationship with them,” says Farr.

Looking ahead, Farr said: “We would like to explore further optimisations to our listings on the Marketplace to ensure we’re providing existing and prospective students with the best experience possible.”

Discover a solution that delivers a seamless customer experience and nurtures your prospects in every stage of the student journey.

Find out how you can get your courses onto the Candlefox Marketplace.

Get in touch with the team today.

Modern student recruitment is challenging, especially when handling hundreds – sometimes, thousands – of leads.

Implementing an effective post-enquiry process is the key to setting up student enrolment teams for success — without one, education providers risk losing prospective students to their competitors.

Here’s how to get started.

Our data shows that education providers enrol 50% more students with a successful post-enquiry strategy.

A post-enquiry management strategy focuses on engaging student prospects through the enrolment funnel – from student enquiry to enrolment. The flow works by providing student prospects with the information they need, when they need it. By doing so, education providers build stronger engagement and reputation with students – significantly increasing their chances of enrolment.

How your sales team or course advisors nurture student leads ultimately determine your final return on marketing investment (ROMI).

Explore our five best practices for lead nurturing and pipeline management.

Speed to response refers to how soon you contact a prospective student once they’ve submitted an enquiry. How quickly you do this significantly impacts the chances of enrolment – the faster the response, the higher the likelihood of enrolling the student.

Increase your chances of reaching prospective students by 50% by contacting them within 30 minutes of enquiry.

For best results, we recommend calling leads within five minutes of it being received. This is because:

If contacting a lead within five minutes isn’t realistic for your team, contact your leads within two hours.

For harder-to-reach leads, we suggest making at least five call attempts within the first 72 hours to increase your chances of a response.

Not every student will be ready to enrol straight away, so it’s important to develop nurture strategies to funnel leads through the enrolment journey. 

Every course advisor will tell you that lead nurturing doesn’t happen overnight. You need to re-engage with your leads as they progress through their decision-making process. Work with your marketing and sales team to develop tailored communication strategies to help get prospective students across the line.

Here are some tips for developing a comprehensive communication strategy:

Understanding how to prioritise the lead pipeline is essential to every sales team. Strong pipeline management ensures every student is given adequate nurture time.

We recommend:

Perfecting conversations takes time, effort and experience. Some students convert easily, but the majority will need to really connect with your course advisors before considering enrolment. 

A skilled conversationalist engages with student prospects by asking the right questions and steering the conversation. Your course advisors must identify students’ needs and goals and articulate how your course can help achieve them.

We recommend:

Prepare your sales team for success by establishing a workflow process using a customer relationship management (CRM) tool. 

One of the most challenging aspects of enrolment is keeping track of where prospective students sit within the decision-making journey. 

This is where a CRM tool is critical. It is a single data repository where you can capture contact information, track interactions and segment leads for automated marketing. 

Having a strong CRM system in place provides you with a holistic overview of all your prospective students – enabling you to assign, manage and nurture leads from interested to engaged and enrolled. 

Before developing your workflow process, there are some key considerations:

A post-enquiry strategy helps providers better convert student leads into enrolment, achieving a stronger return on marketing investment (ROMI).

The Multiversity has bolstered its performance marketing function by appointing Candlefox in an ongoing strategic partnership.

The Multiversity is an Australia-first initiative developed in collaboration between four leading NSW universities – the University of Newcastle, UNSW Sydney, the University of Wollongong and Western Sydney University. Its unique partnership will deliver a new approach to education and training, bridging the future of learning to the jobs of tomorrow. 

This partnership will see Candlefox expand the Multiversity’s student acquisition efforts through a bespoke lead generation and enrolment service. This includes course marketing, lead qualification and management, as well as CRM and marketing automation services.

The appointment is a notable win for Candlefox, which have become an education specialist over the past two decades. Candlefox has helped vocational and tertiary education institutions attract, enrol, and retain prospective students with custom-built digital marketing solutions. 

The Multiversity Chief Operating Officer Jane Reynaud says this partnership will bring opportunities for both parties. 

“This is an exciting moment for the Multiversity. We are bringing together the very best of our partner universities to work together in non-traditional ways to deliver new, industry-centric education and training to our community, driving sustained economic impact and knowledge-job creation along the way,” says Reynaud.

“This is not BAU. We are carving a new path to bring new opportunities to future generations of Australians. We are delighted to have Candlefox’s expertise contributing to the delivery of our vision.”

Candlefox Commercial Director Russell Sheil says, “We are honoured to have been selected to lead the Multiversity’s student recruitment efforts. At Candlefox, we are passionate about connecting students to high-quality education providers, and we’re excited the Multiversity also shares this ethos.”

“We are looking forward to working closely with the Multiversity team to apply data-driven performance marketing solutions to bolster their current capabilities.” 

To learn more, head to the Multiversity website or get in touch.

Backed by both the NSW Government and the Australian Government, the Multiversity is a new education, training and research approach ready for the 22nd century. The tertiary education initiative offers a new program of short courses across STEM disciplines. 

Professor Alex Zelinsky AO, Chair, Multiversity Board, said: “The Multiversity leverages the proven strength and quality of our partner universities. Together, we are reimagining the future of education and training in Australia. With our industry and government partners, the Multiversity is working ahead of the curve and growing an exceptional pipeline of Industry 4.0 ready graduates.”

Candlefox specialises in bespoke digital marketing solutions for education partners. 

Candlefox helps education institutions of all shapes and sizes with lead generation and student acquisition. With a reach of over a million active students per month, they understand the education market and are well-positioned to help institutions navigate it. Over the past decade, they have helped our partners attract and enrol thousands of students so they can focus on what they do best – educating.

The COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent restrictions caused widespread economic disruption and volatility.

These impacts – mass job losses, heightened financial stress, travel restrictions and more – have placed an enormous strain on Australians, resulting in turbulent student attitudes and behaviours in 2020.

Explore our findings from our 2020 Student Sentiment Index.

Each year, we publish a series of articles that unpack our Student Sentiment Index in more depth. These articles delve into each sub-index, providing a greater scope of insights for stakeholders.

How COVID-19 Has Impacted Women’s Employment and Education

How has the pandemic disrupted women’s work and education opportunities?

Read more

Young People, COVID-19 and its Toll on Study

How have mass job losses, travel restrictions and mental health concerns impacted young Australians and their education goals?

Read more

Australia’s Response to National Education Funding Schemes

Have mass lay-offs and increased financial vulnerability made Australians more sensitive to government funding schemes?

Read more

The Australian tertiary education sector generates $30 billion of export income and over 4 million enrolments in any given year.

The COVID-19 outbreak brought unprecedented challenges for our nation’s third-largest export industry. Education institutions faced disruptions, such as:

The pandemic-induced restrictions and lockdowns significantly impacted the volume of domestic and international student enrolments in 2020. 

PWC estimates the 2020 loss of international student income is as high as $4 billion, with additional indirect economic impacts to tourism and consumer spending. Universities alone are predicted to lose $16 billion in revenue by 2023 due to the pandemic. 

Finding solutions to the challenges our education sectors now face is front of mind. Our governments recognise the integral role of education in reviving our economy. In 2020, the Federal Government invested in several initiatives to bolster our domestic education and training sector capabilities. 

It is expected our governments will continue to prioritise workforce education and training in the years to come – the extension to the JobTrainer and free TAFE schemes in 2021 affirming this.

The pandemic caused student sentiment to waver. Prospective students displayed more unstable attitudes and behaviours towards commencing study in 2020 than any other year. 

The Australian Bureau of Statistics reported 112,000 fewer students enrolled in tertiary education in May 2020 than the previous year. 

Historical student enrolment and sentiment trends are no longer representative of the current state of our sector. External factors like job losses and heightened financial stress triggered a shift in prospective students. They no longer perceive and react to study opportunities in the same way.

At Candlefox, we love data. Understanding student sentiment and how it translates to enrolment rates are a fundamental part of what we do.  

As the pandemic unfolded, we wanted to gain a deeper understanding of how it was impacting specific student segments and whether it influenced their degree of optimism or enthusiasm to study. 

We collected Australian students’ attitudes and behaviours through our Student Sentiment Index. This index explored prospective students’:

The data from our four-indices – Sensitivity to Funding, Urgency, Motivation and Confidence – enabled us to critically analyse and report on how COVID-19 uniquely impacted the mindsets, attitudes and behaviours of students in 2020.

The impacts of COVID-19 were highly gendered, with women experiencing job instability, financial insecurity and increased domestic responsibilities. It is reported that 55% of the 600,000 jobs lost in April of 2020 were held by women – more than double those lost by men. 

These factors have triggered unpredictable enrolment behaviours and attitudes among women. 

In 2020, women demonstrated lower urgency to commence study, despite previously representing a greater percentage of the university cohort. Women’s enrolment in tertiary education dropped by 7% compared to a much lower 2% for men in May 2020. 

Interestingly, more women enrolled in higher education than men pre-COVID-19, with 60% of new enrolments in 2019 being female.

Despite low urgency and motivation to study, women were far more sensitive to the availability (or lack) of education funding than men. The pink recession heavily affected women’s financial stability, resulting in more women unable to study without funding support.

Young people, aged 18 to 24, felt the effects of the pandemic the hardest. 

Disruptions to international travel and lockdown restrictions forced young people to pivot their short-term plans and take up domestic study instead. 

Our Index recorded an initial spike in student interest with higher urgency, motivation and confidence reported in March 2020. However, the positivity and enthusiasm to study declined as the pandemic continued. 

Young Australians withdrew their confidence and motivation to study when tertiary institutions pivoted to online learning. The rapid transition to online learning was not well received amongst learners, with only 78% of Gen Z students feeling confident about online learning in universities. 

Up to 50% of university students reported having a negative online learning experience, citing lack of engagement, isolation from peers, and technology issues as some of the top reasons why.

Without a doubt, the pandemic has had a devastating financial impact on Australia. Individuals experienced higher stress and anxiety due to:

These factors have contributed to heightened financial concerns and anxiety. Australians were more concerned about their finances in 2020 than in 2019. Close to 800,000 people lost their jobs at the height of the pandemic, with 30% of Australians feeling financially stressed as a result.

Financial instability prompted individuals to seek out more cost-effective education options. 

This was confirmed through our Sensitivity to Funding Index. Prospective students were shown to be more sensitive to government funding schemes and were more likely to undertake education if it was financially supported. 

To combat rising unemployment rates and meet the demands of the future of work, the Australian Government launched various initiatives – including JobTrainer, free TAFE and Boosting Apprenticeship Commencements – to help train, upskill or reskill Australians.

Ongoing government funding will be key to future-proofing Australia’s workforce and strengthening its post-COVID-19 economic recovery. 

The Student Sentiment is highly valuable to all operating in the education industry. Our data unpacked how prospective students – regardless of age, gender and location – reacted to the COVID-19 pandemic and how it changed their enrolment attitudes and behaviours. 

Our Index will continue to deliver benefits for a range of education stakeholders, including policy developers, industry and research bodies. These insights provide stakeholders with credible, real time insights into the health of our sector, useful for identifying areas of concern or improvement.

The Index provides the most value and opportunity for education institutions in Australia. Here are several actionable recommendations for providers:

The COVID-19 pandemic had a devastating financial impact on Australia, characterised by mass job losses and heightened financial anxiety.

In 2020, our Student Sentiment Index revealed that prospective students displayed a higher sensitivity to funding arrangements, indicating they were less likely to pursue study without financial support.

This article will explore the Sensitivity to Funding Index in more depth. In particular, why some student segments were more reliant on funding arrangements than others.

Our Sensitivity to Funding Index measured the financial status of prospective students and how it influenced their decisions to study in 2020. It deep-dived into these students’ appetite for government-funded education programs and how it influenced enrolment behaviours. 

Our Index found that:

The Index revealed that the majority of Australia’s states (Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia) displayed a similar response at the start of the pandemic, with individuals located in these states observing a higher sensitivity to funding in March 2020 (figure 1).

During this time, we saw nationwide lockdowns and mass job losses. 780,000 people lost their jobs in the week following the announcement of local and national restrictions. 

In this time of job insecurity and financial distress, Australians became more concerned about their finances. 30% of Australians felt financially stressed as a direct result of the pandemic and 48% expect the next few years to be financially difficult – these figures indicating the availability of funding was a priority for prospective students.

Another spike in sensitivity to funding was observed in June 2020 (figure 2). This can be attributed to the announcement of national funding initiatives, including:

Australians responded eagerly to these funding schemes, with Victorian Free TAFE alone being 83% higher in January 2021 than the same time last year.

Women were disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, facing higher job losses and greater caring responsibilities at home. This pink recession left women financially worse off and more sensitive to the availability (or lack) of education funding. 

It’s reported that 55% of the 600,000 jobs lost in April of 2020 were held by women, with 8% of Australian women losing their jobs compared to just 4% of men. 80% of women also did more unpaid domestic work during the pandemic, compared to 39% of men. 

With this loss of income, women were less likely to pursue study unless they received financial support. We see this through the number of female enrolments in higher education – women accounting for 75% of the overall student decline. 

The Sensitivity to Funding Index (figure 3) also reveals that women were consistently 5% more sensitive than men to the availability of funding when considering educational opportunities. 

This problem is further compounded by the Government’s support of male-dominated fields.  The majority of ‘high priority’ occupations defined in the National Skills Shortage List are in the male-dominated industries of trades, technology and engineering.

Although all age groups experienced an increase in sensitivity to funding in 2020, this increase was not felt equally across all age groups.

Young people aged 18 to 24 displayed the highest spike in sensitivity, particularly at the outset of the pandemic in March 2020 (figure 4). This can be attributed to higher rates of unemployment, low wages and higher costs of living. 

Interestingly, 63% of young people reported high levels of financial stress. Nearly one in three workers aged between 18 and 24 lost their jobs between March and April of 2020. Additionally, many young people were unable to secure permanent work upon graduation, prompting them to consider further study only if it was available and affordable.  

On the other side of the age spectrum, individuals aged 45 and older expressed a similar trend to young people. They displayed an abnormally high sensitivity to funding in March 2020 as shown in figure 3. This can be attributed to older individuals holding better financial positions prior to COVID-19, suggesting they were able to undertake study without government assistance. However as the pandemic progressed, a greater proportion of 45 to 65 year olds reported feeling less financially comfortable. 

For those who lost their jobs due to the pandemic or felt their role was insecure, the availability of government funding became more important in helping them return to paid work. These insights reveal that Australians of all age groups are eager to obtain the skills necessary to secure work or pivot to emerging professions, with funding being key to this.

2020 was a turbulent year for Australians, with shifting attitudes to education and training as a result. The volatility of our labour market pushed a third of Australians to upskill or reskill to remain employed and competitive in the workforce. 

The pandemic triggered the first Australian recession in 30 years, skyrocketing unemployment rates to 6.9%. State and Federal Governments responded by bolstering support for education and training, announcing several funding initiatives such as JobTrainer, Boosting Apprenticeship Commencements and Free TAFE.

These initiatives increased access to training for thousands of workers displaced or impacted by the pandemic. Prospective students are now able to access free or low fee (concession) qualifications, relieving financial hardship for those looking to upskill or reskill.

Long-term, these schemes will:

Prospective students from all walks of life demonstrated greater dependency on government funding in 2020. Job insecurity and financial difficulties prompted many to pursue upskilling and reskilling in the most cost-effective way possible. Some discrepancies can be seen within the student population, with women and young people being more sensitive to the availability of funding schemes.

Ongoing government funding seems to be key to future-proofing Australia’s workforce and strengthening its economy.

This article is the latest addition to our 2020 Student Sentiment Index series. To keep up to date with the latest insights, subscribe to our newsletter.

The global pandemic has taken a heavy toll on people from all walks of life – particularly young people between 18 and 24.

These individuals faced a unique set of challenges in 2020. Mass job losses, travel restrictions, and heightened mental health concerns are just some of the difficulties affecting young Australians’ educational and career goals.

We’ve unpacked both our owned data and credible sources to better understand this global crisis and how it has prompted higher urgency to study amongst younger people but lower confidence in our education sector.

Instead of exciting milestones like travelling the world and pursuing higher education, young Australians faced obstacles like mass job losses, travel restrictions, and declining health. The impact of 2020 has left a mark on young people, spurring unpredictable enrolment behaviours. 

Our Student Sentiment Index measured the attitudes and behaviours of prospective students in 2020. We discovered that younger individuals:

With this increased financial difficulty in 2020, young people – those between the ages of 18 and 35 – have become much more sensitive to funding. This means they are more likely to rely on government assistance or other funding schemes in order to commence or return to study.

This trend is best captured by our Student Sensitivity to Funding Index, where these individuals displayed a higher average of reliance on funding schemes than any other age bracket (figure 1). 

The struggles of stagnant wages and high living costs have only accelerated in the wake of the pandemic. Australia entered the COVID-19 pandemic with a youth unemployment rate of 11.6% in December 2019. While strategies have been put in place to minimise widespread economic impacts, this rate rose to 15.8% in July 2020. 

Young people are more heavily represented in highly affected sectors like hospitality, retail, tourism and the arts, and also more likely to hold casual work and lack paid leave. Almost one in three (28%) workers aged 18 to 24 lost their jobs between March and April of 2020. Even after eased lockdown measures, the employment rate of young Australians still lingered at 60%. 

With such enormous job losses come financial stress. Statistics show 63% of young people who lost their job due to the pandemic reported higher levels of financial stress. 57% Gen Z reported that they were living from paycheck to paycheck between March and June of 2020. 

This financial stress saw many young people withdraw money from their superannuation — 61% of early superannuation withdrawals were by individuals aged between 20 and 30.

COVID-19 forced young people to pivot their short-term plans – severe travel restrictions and lockdowns causing mass cancellations of gap years and working holidays. These waylaid plans forced young people to turn to study, spurring a higher urgency to commence study in March (figure 2). 

Young Australians ranked travel as being more important to them than study and work. This, paired with the national jobs shortage, meant thousands of young people had to seek new goals or pathways. For many, the answer was education. 

In New South Wales alone, 14,669 high school leavers applied to start university in 2021 compared to just 7,824 at that time last year. 

This was reflected in the Student Urgency Index, with people aged 18 to 24 demonstrating the biggest spike in urgency at the start of the pandemic as they sought new pathways.

In Australia, students generally commence their tertiary studies in late February and early March. In any ‘normal’ year, it is expected that these individuals would feel a greater degree of confidence and hope during this time. 

However, this trend was not repeated in 2020. Young Australians displayed an initial burst of confidence in March, but this quickly declined when they began to feel the full impact of the pandemic.

We were able to validate this trend by comparing 2019 and 2020 data from our Student Confidence Index. As seen in figure 3, young Australians initially displayed high confidence in February 2020, this rapidly declined in March (figure 3).

Following the closures of campuses, tertiary institutions were forced to pivot to online learning. This rapid transition caused student confidence and hopes to plummet drastically. The pivot to online learning was not well received amongst learners, with only 78% of Gen Z students feeling confident about the use of online learning in universities. 

Up to 50% of university students as a whole reported having a negative online learning experience, citing lack of engagement, isolation from peers, and technology issues as some of the top reasons why. 

This lack of confidence also carried through into young people’s future plans. Half of the individuals in this cohort felt that the pandemic negatively affected their confidence in achieving future goals. The most common reasons for feeling this way included concerns about job insecurity (21%) and study-related concerns (23%). 

This lack of confidence isn’t without good reason — experts say young people will suffer from a phenomenon called scarring, which can affect motivation, skills, connections and their climb up the jobs ladder.

The Motivation Index indicated that young people held higher motivation and enthusiasm to study in March 2020 compared to 2019. However despite this initial spike at the start of the pandemic, motivation among young people to commence study dropped significantly afterwards (figure 4).

Two-thirds of young people reported that COVID-19 had negatively impacted their education and training. The effects of this can be seen in the enrolment behaviour of young people – enrolments for 20 to 24 year olds dropped by 66,100 in 2020 compared to 2019, indicating low motivation and high uncertainty. 

This lack of motivation can be attributed to two key factors:

With the rapid implementation of online learning across schools and universities, many students were left feeling dissatisfied and unmotivated. 41% of students complained about technology issues, 34% felt there was a lack of academic interaction, and 29% experienced a lack of engagement.

With so many things happening in a young person’s life, remaining motivated to study can be a challenge. Almost three-quarters of young people reported that their mental health had worsened since the outbreak of COVID-19, while more than half said they felt less optimistic about the future. Young people were also worried about their futures, with their top concerns being job prospects (21%), education 23%), general mental wellbeing (15%) and delayed plans (17%).

The COVID-19 pandemic has greatly affected young people’s goals, plans and behaviours towards study. This can be reflected in their greater sensitivity to funding, greater urgency, lower confidence, and lower motivation towards study.

This is set to have long-lasting ramifications, with thousands of young Australians trying to navigate uncharted territory.

This article is the latest addition to our 2020 Student Sentiment Index series. To keep up to date with the latest insights, subscribe to our newsletter.

The COVID-19 pandemic reached every corner of the globe, touching the lives of billions in a way never seen before. While all have felt the impact, women have been disproportionately affected by the ensuing economic avalanche. These economic effects can be captured in one phrase: the pink recession.

The pink recession has delivered widespread financial insecurity and job instability, fuelling unpredictable enrolment behaviours amongst women.

This article uses both our owned data and other credible sources to unpack:

Women have been massively impacted by the pandemic. This has sparked a so-called pink recession, characterised by several socio-economic inconsistencies and inequalities.

Around 55% of the 600,000 jobs lost in April of 2020 were held by women. This equates to almost 8% of Australian women losing their jobs, compared to 4% of men. Women’s working hours also dropped by 12%, whilst men’s dropped to 7%. 

This disparity is partly because more women work in the retail, hospitality, education and tourism sectors – industries severely affected by government lockdowns. More women also hold casual employment than men (often due to greater responsibilities at home), making them more vulnerable to lay-offs during crises.

Even prior to the pandemic, women spent a greater amount of time on household responsibilities, domestic duties, and caring. 

This discrepancy only worsened during the pandemic. The rise of remote learning and the scarcity of childcare services forced women to dedicate greater time and energy to their children and household. During the pandemic, 80% of women reported that they did most of the unpaid domestic work, compared to 39% of men. 

There were 400,000 fewer women in the labour force – defined as those working or actively looking for work – in May of 2020 compared to February. This reveals that many women are not even in the position to look for work due to their household duties.

The Federal Government’s recovery package allocated $27 billion towards male-dominated sectors like construction and energy – this amount surpassing all other sectors combined. In contrast, only $240 million were allocated to increasing women’s workforce participation. 

Interestingly, for every million spent on education, 10.6 jobs are created for women. In comparison, for every million spent on construction only 0.2 jobs are created for women.

The pink recession has amplified existing labour market disadvantages, with women facing mass job losses, increased household responsibilities, and a lack of government funding. As a result, women will continue to experience reduced educational and work opportunities.

With this information, women were expected to exhibit lower positivity and enthusiasm towards commencing study.

The data collected in real time from our Student Sentiment Index allowed us to validate this hypothesis. By measuring the degree of optimism – or lack thereof – prospective female students exhibit towards commencing study, we were able to critically examine how the global pandemic disproportionately impacted women in 2020.

We uncovered that women:

In 2020, the Sensitivity to Funding Index discovered that women were more likely to depend on financial aid to pursue tertiary education (figure 1).

This Index measures the dependency of prospective students on government funding and/or other arrangements – with a higher sensitivity indicating an individual is less likely to pursue study if they are not financially supported. These individuals are therefore more likely to miss out on the socio-economic benefits of achieving higher qualifications, while their peers advance up the ladder.

In 2020, we witnessed discrepancies when comparing different demographics’ sensitivity to funding. This revealed that women were consistently 5% more sensitive than men to the availability (or lack) of funding when considering educational opportunities. 

With the ongoing impacts of the pink recession, many women were unable to afford to study without funding support, which in turn heightened funding sensitivity. In fact, women accounted for 75% of the overall student decline in higher education in 2020. 

The problem is further exacerbated by the fact that government funding overwhelmingly supports male-dominated industries. For example, the Federal Government’s “High Priority” occupations, as defined in the National Skills Shortage List, are primarily within the male-dominated industries of trades, technology and engineering. 

The Grattan Institute surmises that “funding is a contentious issue for prospective female students… (with) the difficulties around gender bias, the gender pay gap and female representation in the workforce throughout childbearing years” further compounding the issue.

Throughout 2020, we witnessed women express a lower urgency to commence study, with the Student Urgency Index confirming these findings.

The Urgency Index discovered that women were less likely to commence study within the next 12 to 24 months (figure 2). This sense of urgency could be influenced by a number of factors, including:

Women’s enrolment in tertiary education dropped by 7% compared to 2% for men from May 2019 to May 2020. Pre-COVID-19, more women actually enrolled in higher education than men, with 60% of new enrolments in 2019 being female. Post-COVID-19 flipped this trend – enrolments for Australian men growing by 35,000. 

This lack of urgency can be partly attributed to increased caring responsibilities. Women bear a disproportionate load when it comes to caring for children, elderly parents, or other loved ones. The demand for women to perform these duties has only worsened due to the COVID-19 pandemic, squashing the urgency many women previously had towards their studies.

This lack of urgency is projected to stay long-term. Experts warn that delaying or stopping study for an extended period of time can hurt women’s future work opportunities and earnings, leaving them underqualified.

Following a similar trend to the Urgency Index, women also displayed lower motivation to study than men – a finding validated by the Motivation Index (figure 3). Experts warn increased financial stress and job insecurity are to blame, causing women to shelve away their study ambitions. 

In 2020, there were 86,000 fewer women in higher education compared to 2019. The number of men in higher education only dropped by 21,200. This represents the largest decrease in female participation since ABS records began in 2004.

The decline in female participation was particularly pronounced among women over 25, with the figure being almost 60,000. Interestingly, 26,000 more men over the age of 25 enrolled in studies during this time. 

These stark figures indicate that tens of thousands of women have been forced to waylay their study plans due to:

The COVID-19 pandemic has amplified many existing inequalities between men and women in education and employment.

Despite our strong economic recovery, there will be long-term repercussions for women. Women will continue to demonstrate greater sensitivity to education funding, lower urgency and lower motivation to study. This decreased interest in education will pose significant risks for unemployed or underemployed women trying to re-enter the workforce post-COVID-19.

This article is the latest addition to our 2020 Student Sentiment Index series. To keep up to date with the latest insights, subscribe to our newsletter.

Another month, another Candlefox product.

This month, we’re proud to announce we’ve officially rolled out our new client-centric service – Provider Dashboards.

Our Provider Dashboards are a data visualisation tool that allows our providers to track, analyse and report on key campaign performance metrics.

Using our Dashboards, providers can monitor and evaluate the performance of our Marketplace lead generation service. They can then use this data to:

At Candlefox, we appreciate good data. That’s why we’ve made sure our Dashboard data is processed and updated in real time – enabling providers to pivot their marketing and sales strategies in the blink of an eye.

We created the Provider Dashboards to assist our providers in making informed, data-driven decisions about student recruitment.

We found an underlying need to improve the transparency and sharing of data with our providers. We needed a solution that met the specific data needs of our lead generation partners.

Our Dashboards:

Our Dashboards enable our in-house team and providers to efficiently track campaign metrics simultaneously. Using data visualisation, providers can easily unpack complex information and draw parallels between different metrics.

Our Provider Dashboard tool provides a centralised, interactive means of monitoring, measuring and extracting relevant performance data. 

We do this through a two-part service.

Providers can also use the embedded comparison tools to analyse how their current campaign is performing against prior periods (whether that’s weeks, months or years).

These evaluation tools are a valuable source for uncovering seasonality-related changes to student enrolment trends.

In its current form, our Provider Dashboards are one-size-fits-all. But this is only the beginning for us. We are always looking for opportunities to go above and beyond for our clients. 

We value the relationship we have with the providers on our network and are constantly creating products and services that enable the growth and success of our clients. As we gather more feedback from our network, we’ll make optimisations to the Dashboards – think comparative tools, interactive widgets, and more Marketplace data.

Our Provider Dashboards are currently available to all partners in Australia and New Zealand – free of charge. We have plans to expand this service to the UK in the coming months.

We look forward to sharing more good news about Candlefox products and services in the future. Sign up for our newsletter to get updates delivered to your inbox.

Under New Zealand’s Reform of Vocational Education (RoVE), 16 existing polytechnics merged under one mega-polytech – Te Pūkenga.

In 2019, the government announced reforms to the country’s vocational education system. The reform will see New Zealand build a more robust and sustainable education ecosystem.

There are seven key changes proposed under this initiative:

This article will take a closer look at Te Pūkenga as it continues to be rolled out across New Zealand.

“Vocational education in New Zealand today is overly complex and not attractive enough for neither students nor employers,” says Minister of Education Chris Hipkins. 

Te Pūkenga (previously known as the New Zealand Institute of Skills and Technology) will bring depth to New Zealand’s current vocational education system. 

The mega-polytech will bring together 16 regional Institutes of Technology and Polytechnics (ITPs) under one organisation. Acting as a joint network of education providers, Te Pūkenga will be the ultimate long-term skills training partner for learners, employers and communities.

Through Te Pūkenga, students will be able to shift between work-based, on-campus or online learning – allowing for a more well-rounded educational experience.

Te Pūkenga was created to:

New Zealand’s workforce is rapidly changing, with certain industries declining, while others rapidly accelerate. At the same time, literacy, numeracy and technical skills are becoming more important in a wide array of roles, including blue-collar jobs. This means that strong collaboration between industry and vocational education providers is needed to ensure that graduates have the right skills to contribute meaningfully to the workforce. 

The economic impact of COVID-19 also means the workforce requires more highly-skilled workers to contribute to the economy. Workers themselves may also be looking for ways to upskill and future-proof their roles by obtaining in-demand training.

Te Pūkenga is well-positioned to offer students the learning experience they are searching for, while ensuring this education aligns with industry and economic needs.

The transition to Te Pūkenga poses significant changes and challenges for many stakeholders. Here are some of the changes to be expected over the next two years:

Once rolled out, Te Pūkenga will function as a mega-polytech servicing all of New Zealand. This will create a standardised yet flexible experience for students, allowing them to pursue training that is relevant to themselves and industry.

With greater industry input into training programmes, New Zealand is set to see a more highly-skilled workforce that is truly prepared for the future world of work.