by Head of UK NARIC Dr Cloud Bai-Yun

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We at UK NARIC are acutely aware how difficult the current COVID-19 crisis is for everyone working in the international education and skills sectors.

While it still remains unclear how long the present situation will persist, we recognise that many of you are working hard, adapting quickly your operational models to ensure continuity in the new environment, and to continue supporting your client groups. We are doing so likewise.

Following a phased remote working implementation from 17 March, we at UK NARIC are now working 100% remotely. We continue to provide all of our membership and individual services. Our team remains contactable as usual, to help you with the ongoing and new recognition issues you face in your day-to-day work. Our response times remain unchanged.

You will see from our other newsletter stories this month that there is much we continue to do, across the range of our activities, and that we are developing our services and processes to overcome or mitigate some of the current challenges, so that we can maintain support for our members and the wider sector.

The dramatic changes in recent weeks and recent days present our sector with two important requirements. The first is immediate and urgent and we are all working on this – to maintain operations as far as possible during widespread 'lockdown'. The second is to monitor and understand the effects and impact of the current crisis, so that when it eases, we can successfully adapt to the new circumstances which begin to emerge.

We at UK NARIC will play our part in supporting the sector as we all consider our response to the current and changing situation. At this moment in time, UK NARIC is turning its attention to the following issues, which we believe will be of growing relevance:

• changes to examination systems elsewhere in the world (some of you may have noted the blog articles our research team are publishing on these changes);
• the recognition of transnational education (including distance learning) across the globe;
• how professional and labour registration / licensing systems can be adapted for an interim period to meet urgent skills requirements; and
• how to adapt international recruitment and admissions policies to cater for the new paradigms that we may face in the coming months ahead.

I am confident that useful resources and advice will emerge to inform required measures to meet regulatory change and policy development.

We will keep you up to date on this, in future editions of this newsletter and across all our UK NARIC communication channels.

In these difficult and uncertain times, we hope you, your colleagues, and your families stay safe, and we wish you all the best in your work.

Dr Cloud Bai-Yun
Head of UK NARIC