Which students are likely to travel first, and what will persuade them to book? How can customer service demands be met and exceeded? And what is the latest information on Covid-19, travel restrictions, visas and accreditation?

The government must urgently amend its support package for leisure and hospitality businesses to include the UK's globally-renowned English language teaching sector, says English UK.

On 22 February 2021, Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced how the current lockdown in England will be eased, starting with the return to face-to-face education from 8 March. The Devolved Administrations are setting out how lockdown will be eased in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland along broadly similar directions of travel with varying timetables. 

We are expecting several government announcements on the plan to ease lockdown restrictions in England over the next days and weeks with an initial statement from the Prime Minister today.

The plight of UK ELT in the pandemic has been outlined in a ground-breaking article in the Financial Times.

Together with the Tourism Alliance, we are calling on the Government to recognise the devastating loss of revenue experienced by UK ELT since the outbreak of the pandemic by providing tailored and ongoing financial support to help businesses survive this crisis. 

We are asking the Chancellor to make ELT centres eligible for Business Rates Relief and associated grants, and also to extend furlough for our sector in the coming Budget. We have sent a submission to the Treasury, and are writing to Conservative MPs asking for their support.

It would help if members who live in Conservative constituencies or whose schools have a Conservative MP could also write to them in support of this campaign. MPs pay much more attention to constituents than external groups. As always, we've provided a template letter below and your MP's contact details here.

The Partnered Remote Language Improvement project (PRELIM) is a unique initiative, supporting the development of over 2,000 English language teachers across the world.

Calling all member centres. Help us help you and complete our Covid-19 impact survey by Friday 12 February 2021. The results will help us to continue to lobby government for support and assistance for the sector through the crisis and into recovery.

StudyWorld successfully took place online last week, attracting international agents from almost 50 markets who had 3,000 meetings with English UK and other UK educators.

The 300 delegates had a smooth transition to StudyWorld online, using the familiar scheduling software Marcom eSchedule PRO, which enables delegates to track and enter meetings and seminars easily.