Taken from the mtmconsulting Independent Education Sector Report, 2010
The most significant changes from 2000-2009 in the source of overseas boarders attracted by boarding schools marketing in the UK have been the rise of China and the decline of Hong Kong and the particular expansion of Germany, Spain and Russia. Sterling’s weakness against the Euro has made British schools more attractive and the number of European pupils has increased.
China and Hong Kong will continue to be the largest sources of overseas boarders for UK schools, according to our survey respondents (the Independent Education Sector Report was partially informed by an educational research survey of 31 sector leaders). However, there is a natural limit to this trend: when the parents of Chinese children begin questioning the value of using schools in the UK because of the number of Asian children present, then the game’s up”, according to a survey respondent.
Russia and central Asia will also continue to grow, partly because of the lack of social stability. There is expected to be particular growth in the number of new pupils from Moscow and Kazakhstan. Eastern Europe will become more important, with particular growth from Poland and the Baltic States.
Hong Kong has declined as a source of independent school boarding pupils in the UK, while China, Germany, Spain and Russia have shown significant expansion
However, there are threats to the market for non-British pupils whose parents live overseas…
- Firstly is the fact that some countries that have traditionally sent large numbers to the UK are making it less easy for pupils to attend school abroad (such as via more restrictive visa requirements). They are also, as in China, making greater efforts to expand and improve their own domestic private education sectors.
- Secondly, in June 2009 it was reported (by the Press Association National Newswire) that the UK’s new visa regime, introduced to fight terrorism and illegal immigration, was stopping foreign pupils attending private schools in the UK.
- Thirdly international competition for boarders is becoming more intense, particularly from American, Australian, New Zealand and now South African schools (and the latter are starting to attract interest from British parents). The fall in the number of pupils from some countries in Asia reflects increasing competition from schools in Australia and New Zealand, including state schools in the latter. New Zealand’s independent schools were the highest-ranked English-speaking schools for maths and science, according to the OECD’s Pisa survey. They are also considerably cheaper: in 2008 King’s College, Auckland charged international students NZ$40,000 (£15,000) for tuition and boarding.
- Fourthly, rapid growth in the numbers of pupils at Anglophone international schools across the world is primarily driven by local demand rather than from expatriates, so winning boarders from overseas is therefore becoming more difficult.
- Finally there is the danger that having too many overseas boarders will change the atmosphere and ethos of a school. In fact there appears to be a natural ceiling to the proportion that an individual school in the UK can accommodate. On average it was felt by our respondents that a school could cope with just over 30% of its boarders being from overseas if there is a mix of nationalities and a strong day element. Although opinions about where this point is ranged widely amongst respondents (from 15% to 50% of boarders), even if we remove the outliers the average remains at 31%. However, given that 30% of boarders are already non-British pupils whose parents live overseas, it appears that for many schools this limit has largely been reached already.
However, a potential solution to this problem has been adopted by some UK schools which have clairified their strategy for education and established a separate international study centre (ISC) on or near to their British campuses: these include Bedford School (Bedford School Study Centre); Box Hill School (The ISC); King’s School Ely (King’s ISC); Rossall School (Rossall ISC); Sherborne School (Sherborne International College); and Taunton School (Taunton ISC). Nevertheless, the overall balance of opinion amongst our respondents was that the overseas segment within boarding would decline a little.
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