PFL Global News
The latest Global news and Announcements
Latest News
posted on: 20th november 2009
Hello again everyone.
I hope you are all keeping well.
My, how the time passes by so quickly! Another September intake is completed, another set of business plans are on the table and another New Year looms large!
The end of year report for PFL is pretty encouraging. Despite a world-wide recession of terrible consequences for millions of families around the world, PFL has managed to help significantly more students achieve their study destination aim than in 2008. In fact, this is the 12th straight year that the company has been able to say this. Quite extraordinary and my sincere thanks to you, our customers, for your continued faith in the PFL service and also to the PFL staff, without whose commitment, professionalism and loyalty this would not have been possible.
A special word for the PFL university/college representatives. PFL has many staff that deal with the enquiries and applications for a range of UK institutions. They are tireless in their dedication to their students and institutions. My colleagues, thank you and well done. If you haven’t checked out the PFL list of individual partner institution representatives, you should. I am sure you won’t be disappointed!
You may be asking why PFL’s success is of anything other than passing interest to you, the PFL customer. It’s a fair question. The answer is we re-invest it to the betterment of all concerned. These investments include better equipped, better located and better appointed offices with better trained staff who have more professional support services/teams around them. It means more PFL offices, with more PFL staff, offering more PFL scholarships. In effect, by supporting PFL, you are directly contributing to more employment opportunities in your country – as well as giving yourself the best service around in the sector and a chance to win one of the fabulous PFL scholarship awards!
In addition to the above, in 2010 PFL is launching dedicated Customer Service teams in both Pakistan and Nigeria where you will be able to have a further opportunity to express your views on the PFL service. We are interested in hearing from you. We want to carry on improving our services. Thank you in advance for helping us to do so.
A note to the PFL Australasia team. Ladies and gents, your energy and commitment in 2009 has been outstanding. From a standing start, you have put this division on the map in one year. A remarkable achievement and well done. Our students expect a lot more from you in 2010 though so keep going!
Finally for this update, I would like to once again congratulate the PFL Scholarship Award winners in 2009. By God’s Grace, PFL hopes to not only continue with these scholarship plans in 2010 but to extend them further. We can only do so with you, our customers, fully supporting us. Bless you all for that and Eid Mubarik/Happy Christmas to you all.
Lawrie Green
Chairman, PFL Group International Ltd
posted on: 16th August 2009
Hi everyone.
I pray that you are all keeping well.
The middle of August is always an extremely hectic period for us in PFL and this year is no exception. In fact, if anything it is busier than usual. Why? Well I think part of it is down to the outstanding success of the PFL scholarship events in Nigeria and Pakistan which were held on August 1st and August 3rd respectively. I attended the Nigeria event and it was full of tremendous positive energy and seemed to be well received by those in attendance. In total, £35,000 worth of UK education scholarship awards were handed out to nine lucky winners. Five students are to receive £2,000, three are to receive £5,000 and one very lucky winner has won a £10,000 scholarship! Needless to say, all the winners were very happy indeed and I met the father of the winner for the £10,000 prize and he was over the moon!
A big thank you to Dan Foster and all at Inspiration FM who was kind enough to allow myself, Bukky Awofisayo (Regional Manager, Nigeria) and Femi Sangowawa (Regional Director, Africa) to come on his show. It was a great experience and a lot of fun. I am not at all surprised to know that Dan’s show is so popular in Nigeria – I found him to be charming, professional and charismatic. Dan, if you are reading this, I would love to come back and meet with you again soon – outstanding and big thanks!
On the same trip, I had been to PFL’s new Ghana office in Accra. I was very impressed with our staff and the office itself looked great. If you are a student from Ghana and are reading this, go and check it out for yourselves. The address/contact details can be found on the Ghana page of this website.
In Pakistan, Mr Zafar Iqbal, the Chief Executive Officer of PFL Group International Ltd, fronted the PFL team for their scholarship event. Zafar was ably supported by Mr Haris Shams, Regional Director Pakistan. The Pakistan event was another tremendous success with £27,500’s worth of scholarships awarded. This broke down to five £2,000 winners, one £2,500 winner, one £5,000 winner and one £10,000 winner. The event was attended by no less than five Pakistani Vice-Chancellors or equivalent status! My heartfelt thanks to all who attended the event and witnessed for themselves the real heart and desire PFL has to make a tangible difference.
I would like to just say that all scholarship draws were made in a very transparent and visible manner. It is extremely important to us that our friends, colleagues and clients know that we take a huge amount of responsibility for being even-handed. I believe the testimonials from both these events will confirm that PFL was just that – even handed and fair. I would also like to emphasise that these scholarship awards are from PFL’s own budget and from no other external sponsor.
Finally for this update, if you are in the process of applying to the UK for September 2009 intake, please ensure you get your visa application in to the British High Commission asap. Visa processing times vary from country to country but some are taking quite a long period so please avoid disappointment by applying for your visa in good time.
Yours faithfully,
Lawrie Green
Chairman, PFL Group International Ltd
Message from the Chairman (Designate)
posted on: 12th MAY 2009
Hello everyone. I hope this message meets you in good health.
It has been some time since I last posted a PFL up-date report on the site and a lot has been going on in the company during the last six months. Let me go through some of the recent developments:
New PFL offices:
In the past few months, the PFL team has been hard at work setting up new offices in Nigeria and Pakistan – as well as commencing operations for the first time in Ghana. In Nigeria, PFL is about to open a third office in Lagos in the Surulere district. Keep an eye on this site for further details coming soon. Surulere will add to the PFL presence in Lagos being in addition to the Ikeja and Victoria Island offices. In Pakistan, Faisalabad office has recently opened.
PFL is very excited to announce the opening of our new office in Accra, Ghana. With a great location, lovely décor and a fantastic team, Accra office promises to continue the PFL success story in West Africa!
PFL exhibitions:
During the period March-May 2009, PFL conducted successful and popular education exhibitions in Pakistan, Nigeria and Ghana. Well over 3000 students and sponsors attended these events – further evidencing PFL’s outstanding track record of producing well organized education events. Each exhibition featured many brilliant UK research and vocational schools, colleges and universities. If you were one of the many who came to one of our exhibitions, thank you for taking the time to come along. If you missed out, don’t worry – PFL’s outstanding and experienced student counselors are waiting in top quality office locations/environments to help you!
New in-house representatives:
PFL has also been busy appointing new staff to represent specific UK universities in Kenya, Pakistan and Nigeria. We also expect to announce several more new in-house representatives in the coming months so do keep visiting out website on a regular basis for more news and updates.
Australia and New Zealand:
The Regional Director for Australasia, Mr Trevor Masters has been a very busy man in the past months. In December, I joined him in Australia to visit many great universities. Trevor is currently in Australia again (as I write) along with Mr Haris Shams (Area Manager, Punjab, Pakistan) to meet a whole lot more institutions. Check this site again soon for details of all the new Australian PFL client university and college partners. Trevor has also been busy in New Zealand and has formed fantastic working relations with the cream of NZ education!
New Chief Executive Announcement!
PFL is proud to announce that on 1st June 2009, a new Chief Executive Officer (CEO) joins the group. Mr Zafar Iqbal is a qualified and practicing barrister for a ‘Magic Circle’ London City law firm. Not only is Zafar a tremendous lawyer but he also brings PFL a huge amount of commercial experience and we are very excited to see a professional of his stature come to join PFL to help the company to yet another new level. You may note that I sign off this piece today as ‘Chairman (designate)’ which means for the first time in more than 11 and a half years, I get to be promoted on 1st June too!
Until next time, stay safe, be well and work hard on your studies.
Yours faithfully,
Lawrie Green
Chairman (designate) PFL Group
PS: Coming soon…PFL Recruitment!
Latest Message from Lawrie Green
Hello again everyone.
What a world we all live in. Everytime I pick up a newspaper, check the internet or watch the television, I see another doom and gloom story. People with extreme views wish to impose their ideas. The banking and financial infrastructure of the world is teetering on the brink. Global recession is on us. The environment is being detroyed. Corruption around the world is still rife. Taxation levels are going up. You all know the stories I allude to. But ladies and gentlemen, there is still great joy, beauty and contentment to be had on this planet. I believe it is our duty, both as individuals and collectively, to strive for these things whilst attempting to be a part of the global solution rather than the global problem.
In my opinion, education lies at the very heart of any solution, for any life-problem. Never has it been more important than now to give ourselves the tools to make a positive impact and make no mistake, education is the best tool you can have. Now ask yourself this. If you wanted a tool to fix your garden fence, would you buy the cheapest available in the hope that it did the job effectively? If you did, you might get away with it - on the other hand, in my experience, buying cheaply often leads to more expense in the long run when the tool doesn't do what you want it to and you have wasted your initial investment and your time as you go back to the hardware shop again to buy a better one. Isn't it better to get the job done right at the first time of asking?
It's one thing selecting the wrong tool for fixing your garden wall. It may cost you a small amount of time and money but it would probably be a minor inconvenience in the big picture. However, selecting the correct avenues for your education - that's a rather different scenario. If you get this decision wrong, it can cost you huge amounts of money and a lot of time. In some cases, it could completely finish a very promising career before it has even started. We at PFL take this extremely seriously. We understand our duty to you, your family and the world in general. Our duty - in the final analysis - is to help you select the right tool to get you to where you want to go (always assuming you have the right potential as a student to get there!)
Now we also understand that not everyone can afford to buy the best tool in the shop. That's why at PFL we have carefully selected a range of institutions and courses that allow for differences in the depths of our customers' pockets. What we would say is that, in our opinion, the institutions we partner all provide good value for money.
Ladies and gentlemen, on the front page of this website, it suggests PFL is one of the fastest growing student agencies in the world. To add a little flesh to this statement, I can proudly inform you that we as a company have grown almost four-fold in the last few years. This is a remarkable statistic but one that is all down to one thing - you.
We are here for you, you are not here for us.
At PFL, we believe in good service, good value for money and an honest, ethical approach to our work. We are not interested in money for it's own sake. As I mentioned earlier, we at PFL are interested in being part of the solution, not part of the problem. The question is, are you?
Until my next communication to you, be well, be happy and be smart."
Yours faithfully,
Lawrie Green
Group Chief Executive Officer
Hello and welcome to the PFL website!
For 10 years, we have been trading as Lawrie Green Education (LGE) but we felt that we were not telling you, our customers, what we were really ALL ABOUT. So. It’s goodbye LGE and hello to PFL. Our theory is that if you are interested in studying abroad, you or your family are making plans and investments for your future. And we would agree with you that considering your education as a priority is a superb way to start preparing for everything else that may come your way in your life’s journey.
Though our name has changed, some things remain the same. We have the same TRIPLE COMMITMENT we have the same excellent staff and offices. We have the same excellent CLIENT LIST of partner institutions and we have the same desire to provide first class services to students and sponsors.
There are one or two changes, however. We have recently committed to provide you, our customer, a wider variety of choice by commencing operations in AUSTRALASIA. Please check our site regularly for updates on new universities, colleges and schools being added from NEW ZEALAND and AUSTRALIA. We have recently added to our team. Mr Trevor Masters and his wife, Rachel, will be working hard from their New Zealand base to encourage Australasian institutions to partner PFL to help you consider their beautiful countries.
We have also streamlined one or two administrative procedures to further improve our efficiency and to CONTINUE TO IMPROVE OUR SERVICES TO OUR CUSTOMERS.
PFL regards our student customers as extremely important. You are the future. You are the hope. We embrace our responsibility to guide you professionally and with care and attention to detail. THE WORLD NEEDS YOU, YOU NEED PFL.
Come and see us soon in one of our superb offices or drop us a line. We are ready to be at your service.
Yours faithfully,
Lawrence Green
Group Chief Executive Officer
NB. In Kenya and Nigeria, you will still see the LGE logo for the remainder of 2008. Don’t worry – we are the same team! Watch out though, the PFL logo is coming your way soon!
To celebrate the rebranding of LGE we have redesigned our website (as you may have already noticed!). We are very proud of our new website and hope you enjoy navigating through it's fresh new pages.
We have done our best to ensure there are no mistakes in the text or errors in the layout but like all new websites, there may be a few issues that have escaped us - these will be rectified as soon as possible.
There is a lot happening here at PFL and we simply could not fit it all on the site for the new launch so please check back regularly as new features and information will be made available over the coming months.
We hope you enjoy your visit!