Dear colleague,
The Education UK Partnership provides a range of services to help UK boarding schools recruit international students. You can find out more in this newsletter.
In this issue:
- Schools zone at Education UK Russia exhibition, 26 to 27 September 2009
- Thailand boarding school information day, 6 November 2009
- International agent fair a success for UK boarding schools
- Education market intelligence resources
- International student numbers rise for UK boarding schools
- Join us at the 2009 Education UK Partnership conference
- Developing the Education UK website
- Visas and what the British Council is doing to support UK institutions
- Survey: what support do you need in China?
- Country snapshot: Hong Kong
We hope you find this useful. For more information, please visit our website. Alternatively, if you'd like to discuss your international recruitment and marketing needs in more detail, please don't hesitate to contact us on +44 (0)161 957 7069.
Kind regards
Peter Shelley
Education UK Partnership
T: +44 (0)161 957 7069
E: educationuk.partnership@britishcouncil.org
www.britishcouncil.org/eumd-partnership-boarding-schools
The Education UK Partnership is the British Council's membership organisation for UK schools, colleges and universities.
There will be a special focus on schools at this year's Education UK Exhibition in Russia. With targeted promotion within Russia and a dedicated schools zone, the exhibition promises to provide schools with a vital opportunity to meet potential students and their parents.
To book and to find out more, please visit our website.
This one day event is designed to help UK boarding schools market themselves in Thailand. Schools who attend will visit a popular high school that is interested in working with UK schools. We will also arrange meetings with key contacts including government scholarship administrators, agents, heads of parental associations, and heads of English programme schools and bilingual schools.
Find out more.
On 18 to 22 May 2009, the Education UK Partnership ran a brand new event designed to help UK boarding schools meet overseas agents. Over 25 agents – from India, Japan, Kazakhstan, Korea, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Russia, Thailand, Uganda, Brazil, China, Bahrain, Hong Kong and Vietnam – came to the UK to meet up with over 40 schools at two fairs in Leeds and Bristol.
The schools each had an individual stand to display their brochures and banners. The agents visited the stands in 20-minute 'speed-dating' appointments, giving them a chance to find out about the schools with a view to promoting them to students in their country. Alongside the fair, we also took agents to visit several boarding schools so they could experience what life in a UK boarding school has to offer, plus we held a seminar for the schools covering market updates.
Feedback from agents and schools suggested the event was invaluable in helping them meet contacts they could potentially work with.
Debbie Young from Westonbirt School said, 'The experience has allowed us to build new and genuine partnerships with agents that had not previously travelled to the UK. It was apparent that they were carefully selected for their genuine interest in boarding schools.'
To find out more, please visit our website or contact Peter Shelley.
For agent contact details, please see our website
The Independent Schools Council census for 2009 shows that the number of new (i.e. commencing) international students in UK independent schools has grown to 9,435, making this the fourth consecutive year of positive growth. The total number of international students now stands at 21,535, up 4.8 per cent on last year's numbers.
The major markets continue to be China, Hong Kong and Germany, all with over 1,000 new students in 2008 / 2009. Strong growth has also been recorded in the number of new students coming to the UK from Africa (20 per cent increase), Spain (11 per cent) and Russia (nine per cent), and 'Other Asia' saw an impressive 61 per cent growth. Most source countries recorded an increase, although Japan, Korea, Malaysia and North America were notable for experiencing declines.
Find out more on our website.
We provide a range of market intelligence reports on the opportunities for UK boarding schools in key non-EU countries. The reports, which are exclusive to members of the Education UK Partnership, cover macro-economic profiles, levels of disposable income, in-country education systems, student populations, subject demand and more, and are designed to help you:
- evaluate market opportunities for your school
- plan where to focus your recruitment and marketing activities
- keep track of demand in different markets.
Reports are available on China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Russia, Singapore, South Korea and Thailand. The British Council also provides many other market intelligence reports you may find useful.
We are keen to better understand your expectations and needs for mainland China to help plan our marketing activities for UK boarding schools. If you haven't already, we would be very grateful if you could complete this questionnaire, which should take less than 10 minutes.
Many thanks for your time. If you have any questions, please contact Terence Luk.
The 2009 Partnership Conference will take place on 2 and 3 December 2009 at the EICC in Edinburgh, Scotland. Focusing on international student recruitment and marketing, it is an opportunity to:
- find out the latest education market intelligence
- meet British Council staff from around the world and gain local contacts and advice
- network with colleagues from other schools, colleges and universities in the UK
- hear a range of experts tackle the big issues in international recruitment and marketing.
Information about the conference working group is available. Further details will be made available nearer the conference.
Customer experience research has demonstrated that we need to make the Education UK student-facing website, www.educationuk.org, more customer-oriented. To this end, Education UK has undertaken a competitive EU tender for supply of a new Education UK website and advertising sales management.
Following a rigorous selection process, we have now appointed two new suppliers. Find out more on our website.
The British Council maintains close working relationships with the UK Border Agency on visa and entry issues and has been a member of Joint Education Taskforce (JET) since 2006.
One of our main areas of focus has been to help students, agents and educational communities around the world understand what the new points-based visa system means and present it in a positive light so as to encourage students to continue to apply for a visa. To this end, we are providing our staff worldwide with training and materials so that they can offer consistent and helpful advice. We have also developed a communications toolkit with UKBA so that we can promote the positive benefits of the new system to local media.
We are regularly asking our staff around the world about how the new system is performing in their countries and are passing this to UKBA. This feedback has helped to highlight common issues worldwide to UKBA.
As well as our relationship with JET in the UK, our overseas offices work closely with UKBA visa staff in country. If you would like to feed any visa experiences or issues to us, we will pass it onto UKBA and to our colleagues in country. Please contact Sophie Cannon and Helen Clews with any feedback.
At the Partnership regional meetings, some of you mentioned issues with receiving information from UKBA. If you have any problems with this, please contact Carl Padgett. For questions about licence visits and sponsorship management, contact Julie Senior.
Katherine Forestier, Director of Education Services, British Council Hong Kong shares below news from Hong Kong.
UK independent schools have seen a resurgence in interest from Hong Kong families despite the economic crisis, largely due to parental concerns about education reforms to be implemented in 2009 / 2010 and the medium of instruction in local schools.
For 2008 / 2009, the numbers of new starters domiciled in Hong Kong in Independent Schools Council schools was 1,639 – up 1.2 per cent, after falling in 2007 / 2008 to 1,620, according to the ISC annual census. Hong Kong remains the largest market for independent schools, accounting for 24 per cent of international students.
Schools participating in recent British Council events in Hong Kong are confident that numbers will increase. All school stands were busy at the Education UK exhibition in February 2009, which attracted 8,300 visitors – up 20 per cent on last year.
According to the visitors' survey at the February 2009 exhibition, 53 per cent were interested in school and post-16 education options. When asked whether the economic downturn had influenced their decision to consider an overseas education for themselves or for their children, 37 per cent said it had made them more likely to consider it; ten per cent said less likely; and 53 per cent said it had not impacted their decisions. Parents appear therefore to recognise that it is important to give their children the highest quality education in an English-speaking environment to ensure their success.
A number of factors explain this increasing interest in UK education:
- Parental concerns that the Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education, which will replace the current Hong Kong Certificate of Secondary Examinations and Hong Kong A-levels, may not be recognised internationally by universities.
- Reduced provision of A-levels at international and private schools in Hong Kong.
- Concerns at the quality of English of subject teachers at local schools.
Likewise, at a May 2009 British Council meeting with around 70 agents, representatives reported strengthening interest in UK independent schools. Parents were reported to be anxious to transfer their children to the UK with optimum time to prepare for GCSEs. This may be after Secondary One or Two in the local system, when children are aged 13 / 14.
If you would like to find out more, please contact the Education UK Partnership team in Hong Kong.
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