IALC and FELCA endorse ALTO Best Practice Guidelines

The International Association of Language Centres (IALC) and the Federation of Education and Language Consultants (FELCA) have endorsed the ALTO Best Practice Guidelines designed to assist agreements between language schools and agencies.

Developed after more than 12 months of industry consultation and published in November 2021, the ALTO Best Practice Guidelines cover areas such as preliminary diligence, contracts, payment terms, repeat bookings, promotions, direct bookings and product development.

Following the IALC Workshop held in Berlin recently, Felca  and IALC  published a joint statement expressing their endorsement of the guidelines, and said that with a shared commitment to closer partnership forged in the wake of the pandemic, the three associations have been exploring ways to ensure collaboration between respective member agencies and schools.

 ALTO  has always been at the forefront of creating a more professional international education industry. The ALTO Board of Directors have established global guidelines for the industry through extensive research, consultation and input from various workgroups. The aim of the ALTO Best Practice Guideline is to create a framework for organisations within the international education industry, where each acknowledges and accepts their reciprocal commitments to work as true partners,” Felca and IALC said in the statement.

“The Boards of both FELCA and IALC support the aims of the ALTO Best Practice Guideline and strongly encourage their members to adopt this Guideline into their daily operations. It is hoped that adherence to these practices will improve the transparency of agreements between agents and schools and ultimately improve the student experience.

“Moreover, the Boards of FELCA and IALC would like to thank the Directors of ALTO for their hard work and commitment to the industry.”

Paolo Barilari , President of Felca, told StudyTravel Magazine that IALC and Felca began meeting last year to discuss global contracts and escrow accounts last year, and after the release of the ALTO Best Practice Guidelines decided to work with these rather than duplicating efforts.

The guidelines will be adopted on a voluntary basis by members, but Paolo said that IALC’s membership of more than 140 schools and the membership of around 700 agencies in the national associations that comprise Felca could add significant visibility to the guidelines.

The associations will be promoting the guidelines to members, including at the ST Alphe UK and ICEF Berlin events this year.

Paolo added that the vast majority of the national agency associations of Felca supported the ALTO Best Practice Guidelines and will be promoting to their members.

Click here to access the ALTO Best Practice Guidelines.

By Matthew Knott
News Editor

Source: StudyTravel Network

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