Recruitment agents and the Agent Quality Framework

Official and sector foundations

Document 2 requires sponsors using recruitment agents to commit to AQF principles and retain evidence of their management. The British Council describes AQF as a sector framework for informed student choice, ethical practice, competence and accountability.

Treat agent oversight as part of admissions quality. Signing an agreement is only the beginning; the institution needs to understand what prospective students are being told and how application concerns are escalated.

Suggested agent lifecycle

Maintain a register with the agent’s identity, responsible staff member, agreement, training evidence, recruitment channels and review date. Record whether there are sub-agents and how the institution obtains assurance over that chain. Avoid assuming that a commission invoice captures the full recruitment relationship.

At review, combine case quality, complaints, applicant feedback and unresolved evidence concerns. Low volume can make percentages misleading, so inspect the underlying cases before drawing a conclusion.

• Check identity, business information, references and conflicts before appointment.
• Set expectations for truthful marketing and appropriate applicant support.
• Record recruitment attribution consistently in the admission and CAS process.
• Create a safe channel for students to report misleading advice or pressure.
• Review training, complaints, case outcomes and corrective action together.
• Document the reason for continuation, restriction, suspension or termination.

Keep the institution’s decision visible

Preserve the sponsor’s own admission and sponsorship reasoning. An agent’s assurance does not replace a recorded assessment by the institution. Where a concern affects a live application, record which team owns the next decision and what evidence is still needed.

Use trend information to select cases for review, not to substitute a simplistic score for fair and consistent judgement. Do not infer misconduct from nationality or a small sample of outcomes.