One of the key goals for international schools is for their pupils to be able to go on to study at some of the best universities around the world.
For some schools, these may be just down the road - but for most students, it probably means looking further afield, either back to the UK or perhaps to America or China.
However, when I came to Moldova I was keen to try and replicate the sort of success that I had seen through close collaboration with universities when I was principal at Wyedean School, in Gloucestershire, UK, and ensure that our school and universities could work together to help one another.
International school links with local universities
This was no small task - not least because I was aware that while schools and universities in the UK generally understand how each other operate and their goals, this is not always the case between international schools and state universities.
For example, while our school, Heritage International School, would appear to be pushing students to be outward-facing and global in their outlook, national universities are more aimed at state schools and the national picture.
However, there is more to such a relationship than simply acting as a feeder for new students. During my time at Wyedean, we used our links with universities to help design our classics courses. We used their venues for science lectures and we received their second-hand IT equipment.
As such, I was keen to reach out to the local universities in Moldova and see if and how we could work together.
Firstly, this involved contacting the relevant chancellors.
When I first arrived in Moldova, I approached the local universities for meetings so we could explain further the mission of our international school, look for areas that we could collaborate on and work together at the national level on issues like international qualifications recognition for local students.
These offers were accepted and local colleagues in the leadership team also used their contacts to develop collaboration around pertinent issues such as online learning in the pandemic.
Setting up the relationship
From these meetings it was clear that local universities were as curious about us and where we sat in the education system as we were about them - and we had more in common than we might have realised. We both appreciated that while autonomy is welcome, it can leave you isolated.
So we moved forward to sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with several local universities in Chisinau to commit to working together.
Signing an MoU may sound formal - and it is, of course, a commitment - but it doesn’t have to be lengthy, convoluted or too technical. In fact, it’s better that the MoU is vague in its general educational aims, so that it is flexible and doesn’t commit the parties to any legal partnership.
The aim is simply to set out a commitment to work together and find ways to help one another.
For example, with Moldova State University, our MoU is around teacher training and development.
With Moldova aligning with the Lisbon Treaty on education as part of its journey towards European Union membership in the near future, a key area of reciprocity is for trainee and new teachers to come to Heritage to benefit from the teaching and learning programmes influenced by UK/global educational trends and culture and providers such as the Council of British International Schools (COBIS) and the British Council, which we have as standard in our CPD as an international school.
Heritage has been holding a number of TeachMeet-style free training sessions over weekends this academic year for state and private schools, and it is a very powerful model of bringing the national education community together to work on relevant issues like artificial intelligence/ChatGPT or leadership development in education.
The best of all worlds
Meanwhile, an MoU with the Technical University of Moldova (UTM), led by the forward-thinking chancellor Professor Viorel Bostan, has resulted in our A-level students visiting its laboratories to learn about a project to put Moldova’s first satellite into space. Meanwhile, our primary students visited its observatory in the past year - a trip enjoyed by all.
From our side, I was able to ask Baroness Royall, a former leader of the House of Lords and current principal of Somerville College, Oxford, and someone I knew from my Wyedean days, to sign the MoU with UTM as a symbol of our commitment to the relationship.
For example, this autumn we will be holding the first-ever International Higher Education Fair in Moldova for state and private post-16 students, with a number of European and local universities giving information about what is possible after school.
As a unique event, this will benefit everyone in the national education community, and the fact that we are hosting it underlines how we see ourselves as part of that community - not separate from it.
For some international schools, forming MoUs may not be necessary, or there may be so many schools and universities nearby it would become unwieldly for everyone involved.
However, for schools in nations where such a relationship has the possibility of real benefits - from practical meetings and visits through to demonstrating a commitment to engaged participants in a nation’s education system - then an MoU can be a powerful document and an avenue worth exploring.
Rob Ford is director of Heritage International School in Chisinau, Moldova
