With this year's Education Fair approaching at the beginning of November, education and training providers from all over the world will gather in Tripoli, Libya, hoping to attract students to their institutes. Students from all over Libya will in turn be hustling and bustling from one stand to another trying to find an appropriate university that suits them and that will accept them. Talking to many foreign educational establishments at last year's Education Libya fair and at the ELTEX education fair earlier this year, it became clear that although many students had obtained the much sought after financial grant to obtain a degree abroad, many will not be successful.
The reason is that many students don't have a good enough standard of English to get them accepted by respected universities. Other students' English language level is so weak, that it would take them more than the 1 year pre-sessional English language training offered by many universities to help ensure overseas students can fully participate in higher education programmes taught in English. Universities with reputations to protect are resisting the temptation to boost their fee income, at the expense of admitting foreign students who haven't got the English language skills to make the most of the academic opportunity and experience.