IELTS attributes the situation to a “technical issue” affecting some reading and listening components of its Academic and General Training tests.
Testing company says 99% of its tests in the relevant time period were unaffected by the bug and offers apologies and support to test-takers who received incorrect results.
Commentators point out the consequences of the score changes could be far-reaching.
IELTS test-takers around the world have been informed that some results dating back to August 2023 were incorrect, and revised scores have now been issued.
The incorrect test results are a result of a “technical issue” affecting a number of listening and reading components of some IELTS Academic and General Training tests. Most result corrections are upwards, with some downwards. The majority of test-takers saw changes in component scores, with some experiencing a 0.5 band score change too.
“IELTS recently identified an issue that led to a small proportion of test-takers receiving incorrect results between August 2023 and September 2025,” the company said in a statement.
“Over 99% of IELTS tests during this time period were unaffected and there are no continuing issues with current IELTS tests. We have contacted affected test-takers to provide updated results, to offer our sincere apologies, and to provide appropriate support. We have also contacted relevant recognising organisations.”
The organisation maintained it has “strict quality control procedures” in place to protect the integrity of the millions of IELTS tests it administers each year and assured it has taken “all necessary steps” to prevent this issue from happening again.
IELTS, co-owned by IDP, Cambridge University Press, and the British Council, has launched a help page addressing the issue. The page provides answers to frequently asked questions and guidance for affected candidates and organisations on next steps, including how to access revised scores.
Affected test-takers are being offered refunds and free resits.
Michael Goodine, owner of Test Resources in South Korea, and commentator on the testing industry, said the story highlights “how important it is for test makers to identify problems as quickly as possible so that test takers have sufficient time to protect their interests”.
Goodine worries that those test-takers who originally received lower scores may have “missed out on life-changing academic and professional opportunities for which they needed a particular IELTS score”.
The PIE contacted IELTS for comment.
Goodine also has concerns that the technical issue may have prevented some candidates from meeting immigration or residency requirements.
“It may be too late for some of these individuals to get back on track. I feel for those people,” he said.
Testing companies serve as gatekeepers for academia and for immigration. Michael Goodine, Test Resources
And he worries that candidates who received inflated scores may have found themselves struggling in academic settings.
“Testing companies serve as gatekeepers for academia and for immigration. When they mess up, the consequences can be far-reaching and profound,” said Goodine.
IELTS describes the issue as “an internal IELTS issue” and said it has completed a thorough investigation into the cause of the issue “to ensure no current or future test takers would be affected, and to rectify the issue for those impacted”.
I spent 16 years as an enrollment leader and another 10-plus years working with enrollment leaders. As a result, I’ve witnessed firsthand how the standard lead-generation model for building enrollment is failing institutions.
The promise is enticing: Your marketing agency delivers a list of thousands of names of prospective students, your enrollment team works the list, and students materialize. But this approach creates a vicious cycle that undermines everything mission-driven institutions stand for. It’s like the effects of taking steroids to enhance your athletic performance — you see short-term gains that appear to be unstoppable, but they ultimately take your money, identity, and health.
Here’s what I’ve learned about shifting from a lead-chasing mindset to a long-term perspective focused on building enrollment foundations that actually last.
Finding mission-aligned students requires more than asking your institution’s marketing agency to generate leads. The traditional model — buy bulk leads, work leads, generate students — seems efficient on paper. In practice, however, it produces low conversion rates, disengaged enrollment staff, escalating acquisition costs, and devastating attrition rates.
The math alone should give you reason to pause. When you generate more leads, you need more enrollment personnel to work them. Now you have two major problems: low-converting prospects and mounting personnel costs. Your enrollment counselors spend their days chasing people who don’t understand your mission, don’t fit your institutional culture, and, if they do enroll, often disappear after a term or two (often because they become a lead for another institution).
This isn’t just inefficient. It’s likely counterproductive to establishing your institution’s identity. Students recruited through generic lead generation don’t know anything about your institution or what it represents. They can’t articulate why your institution matters, which turns it into a commodity in their eyes. Students can simply ask “How long will it take?” and “How much will it cost?” and not fully realize that the college experience is about so much more than that.
Look Inward, Not Outward: The Moneyball Principle for Enrollment
There’s a powerful scene in the movie “Moneyball” in which Billy Beane, the general manager of the Oakland A’s baseball team, tells his scouts: “If we think like the Yankees in here, we will lose to the Yankees out there.” The same principle applies to your enrollment strategy, particularly for online and adult learners.
If you think like Grand Canyon University, Western Governors University, or Southern New Hampshire University when designing your enrollment strategies, you likely won’t win the enrollment game, and you’ll waste an extraordinary amount of money and time in the process.
Those institutions have built their models based on scale, national reach, and high-volume lead generation. They have the infrastructure, capital, and brand recognition to make that work. Your institution probably doesn’t, and it shouldn’t try to.
Just as consumers often turn to unique restaurants and up-and-coming artists once the chain establishments and pop stars start to feel too ubiquitous and impersonal, prospective students are increasingly drawn to institutions that offer something distinctive and local. Niche markets can be extraordinarily powerful when you serve them authentically. They generate raving fans. They create word-of-mouth referrals. And they build communities that sustain themselves.
Your competitive advantage isn’t going to come from outspending the national players. It can only come from your institution being exactly what it is, something that no other institution can be. It’s about attracting students who are attracted to your mission and vision.
Understanding the Complete New Student Journey
Creating a mission-centric marketing strategy begins with understanding every aspect of how prospective students experience your institution: from the design of your logo the first time they see it through the response to their first communication, the cadence of subsequent touches, and the tone of every interaction.
One of my greatest frustrations in how higher education operates is the request-for-information (RFI) process. We ask students to provide their information and then tell them to wait for someone to contact them.
Almost no other industry operates this way anymore. Imagine filling out a form on Amazon and receiving a message that says, “Thank you for your interest. Someone will call you within 48 hours to help you complete your purchase.” It’s absurd. Try it out for yourself. Request information from your institution and see what happens.
My advice is to move away from the “Thank you, someone will be in touch” message immediately. Create an instant post-RFI experience that welcomes students and allows them to explore right then and there. Give them immediate access to program information, faculty insights, student stories, and next steps. Let them self-serve while your enrollment team prepares for meaningful, high-value conversations with them.
When students arrive at those conversations already informed and engaged, conversion rates improve dramatically and the students who enroll actually fit the university’s mission. Let’s also not forget that passionate graduates have historically led to alumni giving down the road.
Using Faculty as Your Most Credible Marketers
Building a mission-centric enrollment strategy requires faculty involvement. In the age of large language models and content generated by artificial intelligence (AI), credible human voices matter more than ever. Prospective students can spot generic marketing copy instantly. What can’t be replicated is the authentic passion of a faculty member explaining why their discipline matters and how your institution approaches it differently.
Your faculty are your best marketers, especially right now. They bring subject matter expertise, institutional knowledge, and genuine enthusiasm to your messaging. They can articulate your mission in ways that marketing agencies never will. When faculty are engaged in creating content, participating in virtual information sessions, and connecting with prospective students during the exploration phase, the return on investment is extraordinary.
Embracing Cybernetics: Governance That Learns and Adapts
If you haven’t read Robert Birnbaum’s “How Colleges Work,” I strongly recommend it. Birnbaum outlines four organizational models in higher education, and I can typically identify which model an institution operates under after just one interaction. I can definitely confirm it if I look at their historical enrollment data.
For enrollment management specifically, I advocate for what Birnbaum calls the cybernetics model. Cybernetic systems are self-correcting. Teams gather feedback, learn from outcomes, and adjust their strategies accordingly. This stands in stark contrast to the way the political, bureaucratic, and collegial organizational models that often dominate campus decision-making operate.
A cybernetic approach to enrollment planning means:
Creating governance structures in which teams have genuine authority to act
Establishing clear feedback loops among marketing, admissions, student success, and academic affairs
Using data to inform decisions rather than defend territories
Building accountability that’s linked to shared outcomes rather than departmental metrics
Adapting strategies based on what actually works, not what teams wish would work
A cybernetic approach requires institutional leaders, particularly presidents and provosts, to take ownership of the enrollment vision and build governance bodies that align departmental goals with shared institutional goals. Cross-functional committees need decision-making power, not just advisory status. And planning must extend beyond annual cycles to capture multiyear trends and institutional transformation.
Reallocating Budgets for Mission-Aligned Impact
Shifting to a mission-driven enrollment strategy requires budget reallocation. You must move dollars away from lead volume activities and toward initiatives that create lasting impact, such as:
Faculty-driven enrollment strategies that showcase your distinctive strengths
Mission-driven search engine optimization (SEO) and generative engine optimization (GEO) strategies that capitalize on these distinctive strengths
Content creation that tells your institutional story authentically
Relationship-building programs that deepen community connections
Course scheduling systems that ensure students can access the right courses at the right terms
These investments usually don’t generate immediate returns in the same way that purchasing 10,000 leads might. But they compound over time. They build an institution’s reputation. They create the conditions for sustainable enrollment growth rather than the enrollment roller coaster that exhausts everyone involved.
Key Takeaways
Lead-chasing produces shallow growth that fades quickly and corrodes an institution’s culture. The alternative isn’t to abandon growth. It’s to anchor growth in the institution’s actual identity and what it genuinely offers.
Mission-aligned enrollment requires a commitment to optimizing the entire new student journey, from first awareness through graduation and beyond. It demands faculty involvement, genuine differentiation, and governance structures capable of learning and adapting.
Gone are the days when institutions could buy leads, work the leads, and generate students. That approach leads to poor outcomes for everyone: low conversion rates, disengaged employees, escalating costs, and high attrition.
The institutions that thrive in the coming decade won’t be those that outspend their competitors on lead generation. They’ll be the ones that know exactly who they are, communicate it with clarity and conviction, and build enrollment systems worthy of their mission.
Stop thinking like the Yankees. Start building on the foundation you already have.
Let Archer Help You With Enrollment Planning
In my years of experience, I’ve helped many institutions establish a strong enrollment strategy. And I’m far from alone in my expertise at Archer Education. Our full-service team partners with colleges and universities of all kinds to help them build and scale their capacities.
Is your institution ready to work with a collaborative partner who takes the time to get to know you, then makes custom recommendations based on their decades of experience? Reach out to us today!
Keystone search data reveals the UAE, along with other MENA destinations, is benefiting from shifts in global international study demand during 2025, with an increase of nearly 90% in search interest in June 2025 compared to last year.
Although the MENA destination is expecting growth, the UAE’s rise is particularly notable, drawing highly diverse audiences from South Asia (especially India and Pakistan), Southeast Asia (Singapore and Indonesia), East Asia (Hong Kong China), and Europe (France, Germany). There has also been a modest uptick in interest from US students.
Keystone’s data – which measures relative search interest from millions of monthly searches on Keystone websites – points to subject availability and tuition fees as the two leading factors influencing student decisions to study in the MENA region, as India remains the UAE’s largest source of international interest, with the fastest-growing audiences in 2025 being India, Singapore, France, the US, and Germany.
Ultimately, Dubai is not just offering education but a launchpad for global careers, with an ecosystem that is becoming increasingly difficult to replicate, given the current policy headwinds. Suneet Singh Kochar, CEO of Fateh Education
“The global landscape of international education is shifting, and traditional destinations like the US, UK, Canada, and Australia (the ‘Big Four’) are facing increasing pressure from visa constraints, immigration policy tightening, and affordability concerns. As global mobility patterns evolve, Indian and South Asian students are actively exploring alternative destinations that offer both quality and pragmatism, and Dubai is emerging as a frontrunner,” Suneet Singh Kochar, CEO of education consultancy, Fateh Education, told The PIE.
“Another trend that I see, when it comes to Dubai’s growing appeal, is the uptick in interest for undergraduate studies in addition to the students going there to pursue their masters. For Indian families, it provides the perfect balance – global education within a four-hour flight radius, cultural familiarity, and significantly greater parental access and peace of mind. Safety, quality healthcare, and multicultural inclusivity further reinforce Dubai’s appeal for families looking for a secure, supportive environment for these younger students.”
The Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research (MoHESR) has announced that students applying to the higher education institutions based in the UAE for the upcoming Fall 2025-2026 intake must accept or reject their offers by August 11, 2025, via its electronic portal. All program acceptances and related steps must be completed by this deadline to ensure smooth processing.
With encouragement for students to regularly monitor their applications and promptly fulfil any additional requirements set by institutions, the MoHESR has significantly simplified admissions, reducing document requirements by 86%, cutting the application time and enabling registration at 59 higher education institutions across the country.
“Ultimately, Dubai is not just offering education but a launchpad for global careers, with an ecosystem that is becoming increasingly difficult to replicate, given the current policy headwinds. Today, over 42% of Dubai’s international student population is Indian – clear evidence of the region’s growing credibility and resonance with India,” Singh Kochar added.
“Dubai’s high graduate employment rate is backed by a system where universities are closely aligned with national priorities, offering programs in areas like AI, sustainability, logistics, and fintech that are directly connected to the country’s economic vision.”
Elsewhere, Singh Kochar commended Dubai’s institutions for their strong ties to industry – providing students with access to internships, live projects, and employer networks during their studies.
ELKHART, Ind. — Ever since Ty Zartman was little, people told him he had to go to college to be successful. “It was engraved on my brain,” he said.
But despite earning straight A’s, qualifying for the National Honor Society, being voted prom king and playing on the high school football and baseball teams, the teen never relished the idea of spending another four years in school. So in fall 2023 he signed up through his Elkhart, Indiana, high school for an apprenticeship at Hoosier Crane Service Company, eager to explore other paths. There, he was excited to meet coworkers who didn’t have a four-year degree but earned good money and were happy in their careers.
Through the youth apprenticeship, Ty started his day at the crane manufacturing and repair business at 6:30 a.m., working in customer service and taking safety and training courses while earning $13 an hour. Then, he spent the afternoon at his school, Jimtown High, in Advanced Placement English and U.S. government classes.
In June, the 18-year-old started full-time at Hoosier Crane as a field technician.
“College is important and I’m not dissing on that,” Ty said. “But it’s not necessarily something that you need.”
Elkhart County is at the forefront of a movement slowly spreading across Indiana and the nation to make apprenticeships a common offering in high school.
In 2019, as part of a plan to boost the region’s economic prospects, county leaders launched an effort to place high schoolers in apprenticeships that combine work-based training with classroom instruction. About 80 students from the county’s seven school districts participated this academic year, in fields such as health care, law, manufacturing, education and engineering. In April, as part of a broader push to revamp high school education and add more work-based learning, the state set a goal of 50,000 high school apprentices by 2034.
Tim Pletcher, the principal of Jimtown High, said students are often drawn first to the chance to spend less time in class. But his students quickly realize apprenticeships give them work-based learning credits and industry connections that help them after graduation. They also earn a paycheck. “It’s really causing us to have a paradigm shift in how we look at getting kids ready for the next step,” he said.
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This “earn and learn” model is taking hold in part because of deepening disillusionment with four-year college, and the fact that well-paying jobs that don’t require bachelor’s degrees are going unfilled nationally. The past three presidential administrations invested in expanding apprenticeships, including those for high schoolers, and in April, President Donald Trump signed an executive order calling for 1 million new apprentices. In a recent poll, more than 80 percent of people said they supported expanding partnerships between schools and businesses to provide work-based learning experiences for students.
Yet in the United States, the number of so-called youth apprenticeships for high schoolers is still “infinitesimally small,” said Vinz Koller, a vice president at nonprofit group Jobs for the Future. One estimate suggests they number about 20,000 nationally, while there are some 17 million high school students.By contrast, in Switzerland — which has been praised widely for its apprenticeship model, including by U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon — 70 percent of high schoolers participate. Indiana is among several states, including Colorado, South Carolina and Washington, that have embraced the model and sent delegations to Switzerland to learn more.
Elkhart, Indiana, known as the “RV capital of the world,” saw widespread unemployment during the Great Recession. That led community leaders to focus on apprenticeships as a way to diversify their economy. Credit: Camilla Forte/The Hechinger Report
Experts including Ursula Renold, professor of education systems at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich, note that importing the model to the United States at a large scale won’t be simple. Most businesses aren’t accustomed to employing apprentices, parents can be resistant to their students trading four-year college aspirations for work, and public transportation to take students to apprenticeships is limited, especially in rural areas. Many high schoolers don’t have a driver’s license, access to a car or money for gas. School districts already face a shortage of bus drivers that makes transporting students to apprenticeships difficult or impossible.
Still, Renold, who is known as the “grande dame of apprenticeships,” said Indiana’s commitment to apprenticeships at the highest levels of state government, as well as the funding the state has invested in work-based learning, at least $67 million, seem to be setting the state up for success, though it could take a decade to see results.
“If I had to make a bet,” said Renold, “I would say it’s Indiana who will lead the way.”
Elkhart County’s experiment with apprenticeships has its roots in the Great Recession. Recreational vehicle manufacturing dominates the local economy, and demand for the vehicles plummeted, contributing to a regional unemployment rate at that time of nearly 20 percent. Soon after, community leaders began discussing how to better insulate themselves from future economic instability, eventually focusing on high school education as a way to diversify industries and keep up with automation, said Brian Wiebe, who in 2012 founded local nonprofit Horizon Education Alliance, or HEA, to help lead that work.
Elkhart County, Indiana, was the first community in Indiana to encourage businesses to employ high school students as apprentices, where they can earn work-based learning credits and make industry connections that help them, even if they decide to go on to college. Credit: Camilla Forte/The Hechinger Report
That year, Wiebe and two dozen local and state political, business, nonprofit and education leaders visited Switzerland and Germany to learn more about the apprenticeship model. “We realized in the U.S., there was only a Plan A, a path to college,” he recalled. “We were not supporting the rest of our young people because there was no Plan B.”
HEA partnered with Elkhart County school districts and businesses, as well as with CareerWise, a youth apprenticeship nonprofit that works nationally. They began rolling out apprenticeships in 2019, eventually settling on a goal of increasing participation by 20 percent each year.
In 2021, Katie Jenner, the new secretary of education for Indiana, learned about Elkhart’s apprenticeships as she was trying to revamp high school education in the state so it better prepared students for the workforce. Elkhart, as well as six other apprenticeship pilot sites funded by Indianapolis-based philanthropy the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation, provided a proof of concept for the apprenticeship model, said Jenner.
In December, the state adopted a new diploma system that includes an emphasis on experiential and work-based learning, through apprenticeships, internships and summer jobs.
On a weekday this winter, 17 sophomores at Elkhart’s Concord High School were sitting at computers, creating resumes they planned to use to apply for apprenticeships. The students were among some 50 sophomores at the high school who’d expressed interest in apprenticing and met the school’s attendance and minimum 2.5 GPA requirements, out of a class of roughly 400. They would receive coaching and participate in mock interviews before meeting with employers.
Becca Roberts, a former English teacher who now oversees the high school’s college and career programs, said apprenticeships help convince students of the importance of habits like punctuality, clear communication and regular attendance. “It’s not from a book,” she said. “They’re dealing with real life.”
Becca Roberts, who oversees college and career programs at Concord High School in Indiana, helps students research different companies offering apprenticeships, including job descriptions, work schedules and commuting distances. Credit: Camilla Forte/The Hechinger Report
One student, Ava Cripe, said she hoped for an apprenticeship of some sort in the health care field. She’d only been a pet sitter and was nervous at the thought of having a professional job. “You’re actually going out and working for someone else, like not for your parents or your grandma, so it’s a little scary,” she said.
CareerWise Elkhart has recently beefed up its support for students and businesses participating in apprenticeships. It employs a business partnership manager and customer success managers who help smooth over issues that arise in the workplace — an apprentice who isn’t taking initiative, for example, or an apprenticeship that isn’t sufficiently challenging. “Before, if an issue came up, a business would just fire a student or a student would leave,” said Sarah Koontz, director of CareerWise Elkhart County. “We’re now more proactive.”
In Elkhart and across the state, the embrace of work-based learning has worried some parents who fear it will limit, not expand, their children’s opportunities. In previous generations, career and technical programs (then known as vocational education) were often used to route low-income and Black and Hispanic students away from college and into relatively low-paying career paths.
Anitra Zartman, Ty’s mother, said she and her husband were initially worried when their son said he wanted to go straight to work. They both graduated from college, and her husband holds a master’s degree. “We were like, ‘Don’t waste your talent. You’re smart, go to college.’” But she says they came around after seeing how the work experience influenced him. “His maturity has definitely changed. I think it’s because he has a responsibility that he takes very seriously,” she said. “He doesn’t want to let people down.”
Her eldest daughter, Senica Zartman, also apprenticed during her final two years of high school, as a teacher’s assistant. She is now in college studying education. “The apprenticeship solidified her choice,” Anitra Zartman said, and it helped her decide to work with elementary students. Anitra Zartman said she would encourage her two youngest children to participate in apprenticeships too.
Ty Zartman works from 6 a.m. to noon at his apprenticeship at Hoosier Crane Service Company before he goes to school for afternoon classes. Credit: Camilla Forte/The Hechinger Report
Sarah Metzler, CEO of the nonprofit HEA, said apprenticeships differ from the vocational education of the past that tended only to prepare students for relatively low paid, entry-level jobs. With apprenticeships, she said, students must continually learn new skills and earn new licenses and industry certifications as part of the program.
Litzy Henriquez Monchez, 17, apprentices in human resources at a company of 50 people, earning $13.50 an hour. “I deal with payroll, I onboard new employees, I do a lot of translating. Anything that has to do with any of the employees, I deal with,” she said. She’s also earning an industry-recognized certification for her knowledge of a human resources management system, and says the company has offered to pay for her college tuition if she continues in the position.
Koontz said most companies pay for their apprentices to attend Ivy Tech, a statewide community college system, if they continue to work there. One is even paying for their apprentice’s four-year degree, she said.
Attracting employers has proven to be the biggest challenge to expanding youth apprenticeships — in Elkhart and beyond. In total, 20 companies worked with the Elkhart school districts last year, and 28 have signed on for this coming school year — only enough to employ about a third of interested students.
The obstacles, employers say, include the expense of apprentices’ salaries, training and other costs.
Metzler and others, though, point to studies showingbenefits for employers, including cost savings over time and improved employee loyalty. And in Indiana, the Fairbanks foundation and other organizations are working on ways to reduce employer costs, including by developing a standard curriculum for apprenticeships in industries like health care and banking so individual companies don’t bear the costs alone.
Business leaders who do sign on say they are happy with the experience. Todd Cook, the CEO of Hoosier Crane Service Company, employs 10 high schoolers, including Ty Zartman, as engineering and industrial maintenance technician apprentices, approximately 10 percent of his staff. He said the pipeline created by the apprenticeship program has helped reduce recruiting costs.
“We’re starting to build our own farm system of talent,” he said. Students initially earn $13 an hour, and finish their apprenticeship earning $18. If they continue with the company, he said, they can earn up to $50 an hour after about five years. And if they go on to become trainers or mentors, Cook said, “Honestly, there is no ceiling.”
Transportation has been a limiting factor too. There’s no public transit system, and students who can’t rely on their parents for rides are often out of luck. “We’d love to offer a bus to every kid, to every location, but we don’t have people to run those extra bus routes,” said Principal Pletcher.
The state has tried to help by investing $10 million to help students pay for costs such as transportation, equipment and certifications. Each school that provides work-based learning opportunities also receives an additional $500 per student.
Indiana has a goal to employ 50,000 high school students as apprentices by 2034. State leaders in business, education, government and nonprofits are working closely with Swiss experts to adopt a youth apprenticeship program similar to the one in that country. Credit: Camilla Forte/The Hechinger Report
Trump’s executive order called for the secretaries of education, labor and commerce to develop a plan by late August for adding 1 million new apprenticeships. The order does not set a date for reaching that milestone, and it applies to apprentices of all ages, not just high schoolers. Vinz Koller of Jobs for the Future said the goal is modest, and achievable; the number of youth apprenticeships has doubled just in the past few years, he said, and California alone has a goal of reaching 500,000 apprenticeships, across all ages, by 2029.
Still, the order did not include additional funding for apprenticeships, and the Trump administration’s proposed budget includes major cuts to workforce development training. In an email, a White House spokesperson said the administration had promoted apprenticeships through outreach programs but did not provide additional information including on whether that outreach had a focus on youth apprenticeships.
Back in Elkhart, Ty Zartman, the Hoosier Crane apprentice, has begun his technician job with the company after graduating in early June. He is earning $19 an hour. He is also taking a class at the local community college on electrical work and recently received a certificate of completion from the Department of Labor for completing 2,000 hours of his apprenticeship.
Anitra Zartman said she wishes he’d attended more school events like pep rallies, and sometimes worried he wasn’t “being a kid.” But Ty said his supervisor is “super flexible” and he was able to go to the winter formal and prom. “I think I still live a kid life,” he said. “I do a lot of fun things.”
Of his job, he said, “I love it so much.”
Contact editor Caroline Preston at 212-870-8965, via Signal at CarolineP.83 or on email at [email protected].
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Dive Brief:
Threat actors are trying to extort some public schools by threatening them with teacher and student information stolen in a December 2024 data breach of PowerSchool’s Student Information System, according to recent statements from the ed tech software provider and the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction.
PowerSchool confirmed on Wednesday that it paid a ransom to threat actors shortly after the Dec. 28, 2024, data breach. The company added that it believes the threat actors seeking ransoms from schools are using the same compromised data set from the December incident, which included student and staff names, contact information, some Social Security numbers, medical notes and a limited number of passwords.
While PowerSchool’s December data breach appeared to impact a wide range of school districts across North America, a spokesperson on Friday told K-12 Dive that the threat actors have only contacted four school districts. Schools in locations ranging from North Carolina to Toronto began to report receiving such ransom threats this week.
Dive Insight:
For years, the FBI has advised schools and other organizations not to pay ransomware demands, because doing so can embolden threat actors and there’s no guarantee that stolen data will be recovered.
PowerSchool acknowledged in a Wednesday statement that it made a “very difficult decision” to pay a ransom after the December 2024 incident. The company said it thought paying a ransom was the best option for preventing the data from going public.
“In the days following our discovery of the December 2024 incident, we made the decision to pay a ransom because we believed it to be in the best interest of our customers and the students and communities we serve,” PowerSchool said. “As is always the case with these situations, there was a risk that the bad actors would not delete the data they stole, despite assurances and evidence that were provided to us.”
A PowerSchool spokesperson said the company is not disclosing how much it paid to the threat actor.
Meanwhile in North Carolina, the state’s education department pointed out in a Wednesday statement that PowerSchool had assured its customers five months ago that the data compromised in the December 2024 data breach was not shared and had been destroyed.
“Unfortunately, that has proven to be incorrect,” the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction said. “PowerSchool is the party responsible for the breach. There is nothing NCDPI, school districts or individual schools could have done to prevent these violations.”
The state education department added that it will not engage with the threat actors and that doing so would violate North Carolina law.
Additionally, the department said the incident appears to be a global cybersecurity incident impacting customers in multiple states and Canada. An FBI investigation into the matter is ongoing, according to NCDPI.
PowerSchool is working directly with the contacted schools and law enforcement, the company’s spokesperson said. The company is also providing free credit monitoring and identity protection services to students and staff.
Public pushback against PowerSchool since it announced the initial data breach in January has included multiple class action lawsuits. The company serves over 60 million students and 18,000 educational customers.
The data breach occurred after a threat actor gained unauthorized access to an unknown amount of student and staff data by infiltrating the company’s PowerSource customer support portal for district and school staff. PowerSchool previously confirmed to K-12 Dive that the same system lacked multifactor authentication — a standard and encouraged practice for securing sensitive data.
Last year, FIRE launched the Free Speech Dispatch, a regular series covering new and continuing censorship trends and challenges around the world. Our goal is to help readers better understand the global context of free expression. Want to make sure you don’t miss an update? Sign up for our newsletter.
Guilty finding for German editor’s doctored “I hate freedom of opinion” image
Germany’s speech policing can’t stay out of the spotlight for long, apparently. This month, David Bendels, editor-in-chief for the Alternative for Germany (AfD)-affiliated Deutschland Kurier, received a seven-month suspended sentence for “abuse, slander or defamation against persons in political life.”
The offense? Bendels had edited and posted a photo of Interior Minister Nancy Faeser so that a sign she held said, “I hate freedom of opinion.” (Just think of how many different versions you saw of the Michelle Obama sign meme here in the U.S.) A Bavarian district court found Bendels guilty under a provision giving advanced protections to political figures against speech. Bendels’ sentencing has provoked criticism outside of his political circle, with figures like former Green Party leader Ricarda Lang questioning the “proportionality” of the ruling.
Political speech under fire, from Thailand to Zimbabwe to Russia
American academic Paul Chambers, a Naresuan University lecturer, has lost his visa and is facing trial after the Royal Thai Army accused him of violating Thailand’s oppressive lese-majeste laws. The laws, which ban insults to the country’s monarchy, regularly result in long prison sentences for government critics.
Hamas militants tortured a Palestinian man to death after he participated in anti-Hamas protests.
A St. Petersburg military court sentenced 67-year-old Soviet-era dissident Alexander Skobov to 16 years in prison for participating in the Free Russia Forum and making a social media post in support of Ukraine.
Indian comedian Kunal Kamra is experiencing a wave of retaliation after joking about state leader Eknath Shinde at a comedy club. Kamra is facing multiple criminal charges, including defamation, as well as death threats. But he isn’t backing down — his response on X included a “step-by-step guide” on “How to Kill an Artist.”
Zimbabwe police have detained journalist Blessed Mhlanga for weeks on charges of “transmitting information that incites violence or causes damage to property.” He had interviewed a veteran and political figure who called for the resignation of President Emmerson Mnangagwa.
Israeli military temporarily blindfolded, handcuffed, and detained filmmaker Hamdan Ballal, best known for the Oscar-winning documentary “No Other Land,” while he was receiving medical care after settlers attacked him during Ramadan near his home in the West Bank.
Burkina Faso’s military junta is accused of forcibly conscripting journalists who criticized severe press freedom violations in the country.
Nigeria’s Borno State arrested a 19-year-old for his viral social media post criticizing public schools in the region and intend to charge him with “ridiculing and bringing down the personality of” the governor.
Lawyers representing dissenting voices aren’t free from consequences, either. An Iranian court sentenced a dozen lawyers who provided legal services to clients from the country’s 2022 protest movement to three years in prison on “propaganda” charges.
Turkey targets journalists amid protests
Protesters gather in Istanbul after the detention of the city’s Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu.
Last month, Turkish police banned protests in Istanbul and arrested the city’s Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, a popular rival of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The crackdown has extended to the press, too. Authorities arrested BBC correspondent Mark Lowen and deported him for “being a threat to public order,” arrested AFP photographer Yasin Akgül for “taking part in an illegal gathering,” and charged Swedish journalist Kaj Joakim Medin for allegedly “being a member of a terrorist organization” and “insulting” Erdogan.
The latest in tech and censorship:
Late last month, a massive earthquake struck Myanmar, causing thousands of deaths and injuries. But the country’s military junta nevertheless continued severe restrictions on reporting and internet access, hampering recovery efforts.
The Kenyan high court in Nairobi ruled that a lawsuit alleging Meta’s content moderation practices fueled violence in Ethiopia can go forward.
Meta says it’s facing “substantial” fines because it “pushed back on requests from the Turkish government to restrict content that is clearly in the public interest” in the aftermath of Mayor Imamoglu’s arrest.
Turkish authorities also demanded the social media platform X block hundreds of accounts within the country, to which X partially complied but has since challenged some of the orders “to defend the expression of our users.”
X is also challenging the use of a provision of India’s Information Technology Act to issue content takedown orders.
India’s Supreme Court, in response to Wikimedia Foundation’s appeal against an order from the Delhi High Court, pushed back against that court’s demand that Wikipedia take down a page detailing Asian News International’s lawsuit against the Foundation.
The Investigatory Powers Tribunal issued a ruling opposing the UK government’s attempt to keep secret Apple’s appeal against orders that it offer a backdoor in its encrypted cloud service for users around the world.
European Union authorities are reportedly planning to announce penalties including “a fine and demands for product changes” against X for alleged violations under the Digital Services Act.
Pakistan’s blasphemers still under attack
Late last month, a Pakistan court sentenced five men to death for posting “blasphemous” content online, a common charge and penalty in Pakistan. But that’s not all. A Pakistani YouTuber is also facing blasphemy charges (not his first) for naming a perfume “295” — a reference to the blasphemy law in the country’s penal code.
Let’s check back in across the pond…
Lately, it seems not a day goes by without the UK’s free speech issues hitting the headlines. This month is no different. Here’s the latest:
As I’ve written about in recent editions of the Dispatch, the UK has been flirting with enforcement of blasphemy laws in the country. That risk has advanced with the charge of “intent to cause against the religious institution of Islam, harassment, alarm or distress” filed against a man who burned a Quran outside the Turkish consulate in London. The alleged target in the case — the “religious institution of Islam” — is notable.
On the other hand, the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority chose not to act on hundreds of complaints filed over an allegedly anti-Christian KFC ad that “depicts a man being baptised in a lake of gravy before transforming into a human-sized chicken nugget.”(Last year, the ASA did act against a comedy tour ad that could cause “serious offence” to Christians.)
A lower court in Poole found anti-abortion activist Livia Tossici-Bolt guilty on two charges of breaching a public spaces protection order for standing outside an abortion clinic with a sign that read “Here to talk, if you want.” The court gave her a conditional discharge and ordered her to pay £20,000 (about $27,000) in legal costs.
Over 30 police officers arrested six activists from Youth Demand at a Quaker meeting house in London “on suspicion of conspiracy to cause a public nuisance.” One member said the group was “so incensed” by the raid “that they didn’t even offer officers a cup of tea.”
Hertfordshire police are conducting a “rapid and thorough review” after the arrest and 11-hour detainment of a couple on various charges, including harassment and malicious communications because they voiced complaints about their daughter’s school on WhatsApp.
The aforementioned arrests are just a drop in the pond — data obtained by The Times found that UK police are detaining around 12,000 people annually for “sending messages that cause ‘annoyance’, ‘inconvenience’ or ‘anxiety’ to others via the internet, telephone or mail.”
China’s critics targeted in Hong Kong — and Canada
Chinese dissident artist and human rights activist Badiucao holding his Lennon Wall flag that he designed in support of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement, October 5, 2019.
Milan digital gallery Art Innovation is facing criticism for its response to an artist it featured in a short video broadcast on billboards during a recent art fair in Hong Kong. In it, artist, CCP critic, and frequent target of censorship Badiucao mouthed the words, “You must take part in revolution,” a Mao Zedong quote and the title of his new graphic novel.
When he announced that he planned to publish a statement about his effort to skirt Hong Kong’s censorship laws, Art Innovation warned him there would “definitely” be legal action if material “against the Chinese government is published.” And in a social media post, the gallery said Badiucao was not upfront about the “nature of the work” so they “can consider it a crime.”
And that’s not all the news out of Hong Kong. In recent weeks, a 57-year-old man was sentenced to a year in prison for “seditious” social media posts including some calling the Chinese government a “terrorist state” and an “evil axis power.” Police also took in for questioning the parents of U.S.-based democracy activist Frances Hui, who is wanted in Hong Kong on national security charges.
Hong Kong’s campaign to target its activists is causing a stir elsewhere, too — in Canadian elections. Canadian member of parliament and Liberal Party candidate Paul Chiang stepped down from the April 28 election days after a video of comments he made earlier this year surfaced. In it, Chiang encouraged people to bring Conservative party candidate Joe Tay, who is wanted by Hong Kong authorities, to Toronto’s Chinese consulate to collect a bounty for him.
Impact in the arts is fundamentally different from other fields. It is built on relationships, trust, and long-term engagement with communities, businesses, and cultural institutions.
Unlike traditional research models, where success is often measured through large-scale returns or policy influence, impact in the creative industries is deeply personal, embedded in real-world collaborations, and evolves over time.
For specialist arts institutions, impact is not just about knowledge transfer – it’s about experimental knowledge exchange. It emerges from years of conversations, interdisciplinary convergence, and shared ambitions. This process is not transactional; it is about growing networks, fostering trust, and developing meaningful partnerships that bridge creative research with industry and society.
The AHRC Impact Acceleration Account (IAA) has provided a vital framework for this work, but to fully unlock the potential of arts-led innovation, it needs to be bigger, bolder, and more flexible. The arts sector thrives on adaptability, yet traditional funding structures often fail to reflect the reality of how embedded impact happens – rarely immediate or linear.
At the University for the Creative Arts (UCA), we have explored a new model of knowledge exchange—one that moves beyond transactional partnerships to create impact at the convergence of arts, business, culture, and technology.
From ideas to impact
At UCA, IAA impact has grown not through top-down frameworks, but through years of relationship-building with creative businesses, independent artists, cultural organisations, and museums. These partnerships are built on trust, long-term engagement, and shared creative exploration, rather than short-term funding cycles.
Creative industries evolve through conversation, experimentation, and shared risk-taking. Artists, designers, filmmakers, and cultural institutions need time to test ideas, adapt, and develop new ways of working that blend creative practice with commercial and social impact.
This approach has led to collaborations that demonstrate how arts impact happens in real-time, to name a few:
Immersive storytelling and business models – Research in VR and interactive media is expanding the possibilities of digital storytelling, enabling new audience experiences and sustainable commercial frameworks for creative content.
Augmented reality and cultural heritage – Digital innovation is enhancing cultural engagement, creating interactive heritage experiences that bridge physical and virtual worlds, reinforcing cultural sustainability.
Sustainable design and material innovation – Design-led projects are exploring circular economy approaches in sports, fashion, and product design, shifting industry mindsets toward sustainability and responsible production.
Photography and social change – Research in archival and curatorial practice is reshaping how marginalised communities are represented in national collections, influencing curatorial strategies and institutional policies.
These projects are creative interventions that converge research, industry, and social change. We don’t just measure impact; we create it through action.
A different model of knowledge exchange
The AHRC IAA has provided an important platform for arts-led impact, but if we are serious about supporting creative industries as a driver of economic, cultural, and social transformation, we must rethink how impact is funded and measured. Traditional funding models often overlook the long-term, embedded collaborations that define arts impact.
To make the impact funding more effective, we need to:
Recognise that creative impact develops over time, often requiring years of conversation, trust-building, and iterative development.
Encourage risk-taking and experimentation, allowing researchers and industry partners the flexibility to develop innovative ideas beyond rigid funding categories.
Expand the scale and duration of support to enable long-term transformation, allowing small and specialist universities to cultivate deeper, sustained partnerships.
In academic teaching and training, knowledge exchange must be reconsidered beyond the REF framework. Rather than focusing solely on individual research outputs, assessment frameworks should value collective impact, long-term partnerships, and iterative creative inquiry. Funding models should support infrastructure that enables researchers to develop skills in knowledge exchange, ensuring it is a fundamental pillar of academic and professional growth.
By embedding knowledge exchange principles into creative education, we can cultivate a new generation of researchers who are not only scholars but also creative change makers, equipped to collaborate with industry, drive cultural innovation, and shape the future of the creative economy.
A call for bigger, bolder AHRC impact funding
UCA’s approach demonstrates how arts institutions are developing a new model of impact—one rooted in collaboration, creativity, and social change. However, for this model to thrive, impact funding must evolve to recognise and support the unique ways in which creative research generates real change.
To keep pace with the evolving needs of cultural, creative, and technology industries, research funding must acknowledge that impact in the arts is about stories, communities, and the human connections that drive transformation. It’s time to expand our vision of what impact means – and to build a funding model that reflects the true value of the arts in shaping business, culture, and society.
SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 19, 2024 — A federal court, acting on a stipulation agreed to by the California attorney general and San Francisco city attorney, today haltedenforcement of a California law that officials deployed to suppress journalism about a controversial tech CEO’s sealed arrest records.
Under the law, any person — including journalists, advocates, witnesses, and victims of crimes — faced a civil penalty of up to $2,500 for sharing public information. The court order results from a First Amendment lawsuit filed by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression in November, which led the California attorney general and San Francisco city attorney to agree not to enforce the law while the lawsuit is pending.
“The press and public have a constitutional right to discuss what’s publicly known,” said FIRE attorney Adam Steinbaugh. “Government officials can’t punish the press and public when officials fail to safeguard information. That responsibility starts and ends with the government.”
In October 2023, journalist Jack Poulson published articles about a controversial tech CEO’s arrest, sharing a copy of the arrest report sent to him by an unidentified source. The San Francisco Police Department had previously made that report public, even though the executive had successfully petitioned a state court to seal the record.
Almost a year after Poulson published the report, the city attorney of San Francisco — working with the tech executive — sentthreeletters to Poulson and his webhost, Substack, demanding they remove articles and the sealed report. Those letters threatened enforcement of California’s anti-dissemination statute, Penal Code § 851.92(c). The law imposes a civil penalty of up to $2,500 on any person (except the government officials charged with maintaining the secrecy of sealed records) who shares a sealed arrest report or any information “relating to” the report — even if the information is already publicly available.
Concerned by the implications of the statute, FIRE suedthe San Francisco city attorney and the California attorney general on behalf of the Bay Area-based First Amendment Coalition, its Director of Advocacy Ginny LaRoe, and legal commentatorEugene Volokh. Each regularly comments on censorship campaigns precisely like the one the tech CEO and city attorney launched against Paulson and Substack. But the anti-dissemination statute prohibited them from covering the CEO story, even though the information has been publicly available for over a year.
Today, the court entered a preliminary injunctionagreed to by both California and the city attorney that prohibits them from enforcing the law with respect to publicly available information.
The preliminary injunction protects not only FAC and Volokh, but anyone — including journalists like Poulson — who publishes information made available to the public.
“Discussing and sharing lawfully obtained information about arrests is not a crime — it’s a core First Amendment right,” said FIRE Staff Attorney Zach Silver. “The rich and powerful shouldn’t have the luxury of deploying the government to put their skeletons back in the closet. By standing up for their own rights, the First Amendment Coalition and Eugene Volokh have helped to protect others from facing legal action under California’s anti-dissemination law.”
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to defending and sustaining the individual rights of all Americans to free speech and free thought — the most essential qualities of liberty. FIRE educates Americans about the importance of these inalienable rights, promotes a culture of respect for these rights, and provides the means to preserve them.
CONTACT:
Jack Whitten, Communications Campaign Specialist, FIRE: 215-717-3473; [email protected]
On December 13, CUPA-HR and ten other higher education associations sent a letter to United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Director Ur Jaddou requesting the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) extend its previously announced flexibilities on Form I-9 compliance requirements through June 30, 2022. The guidance, which has been extended continuously since March 2020 and was amended on April 1, 2021, permits remote inspection of Form I-9 documents in situations where employees work exclusively in a remote setting due to COVID-19-related precautions.
The guidance is currently slated to expire on December 31, 2021. As such, colleges that have used the remote I-9 accommodation will be required to physically inspect the documents of affected employees no later than three business days once normal operations resume — providing a very limited window in which to inspect the documents of potentially large numbers of employees.
As the current expiration date is problematic, the CUPA-HR letter requests DHS to extend the I-9 flexibility guidance through the spring semester. The letter highlights two major reasons to extend the guidance past its current expiration date: the uncertainty posed by the Omicron variant and the current guidance’s expiration date falling between two major federal government holidays and in the middle of most college and university winter breaks. Given the need for predictability and the wind-down of university operations before the expiration date, the letter also encourages DHS to announce the requested extension on or before December 17, 2021.
Please Submit Your Feedback On the I-9 Process
On a related note, CUPA-HR is requesting your feedback to help our Government Relations team respond to DHS’s Request for Public Input on document examination practices for Form I-9 and the guidance for flexibility created in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. To ensure we can provide the most comprehensive feedback to DHS as possible, please make sure someone from your institution responds to CUPA-HR’s Survey by 11:00 p.m. ET on December 15. All responses will help us finalize the comments we submit to DHS.
