ISC Research: International School Newsletter - August 2009
August 2009 international school newsletter
In This Issue:
- Enrolment Trends and New International School Projects
- Country Focus on Australia
- International School News Roundup
- What are the advantages to being a subscriber
- See a demo of the system in Adobe Flash
Current Market Size
| Current Market Size | |
|---|---|
| Total number of English-medium international schools (not including future schools) | 5,335 |
| Total number of students | 2,322,109 |
| Changes since January 1st | |
| New school records | 361 |
| Updated (many schools are updated several times a year) | 4,647 |
| Checked | 4,054 |
| Heads updated (names and/or email addresses) | 1,066 |
| Heads checked | 3,640 |
| Emails changed | 1,231 |
Is the international schools' market contracting?
Some press articles over the last year have been written on the assumption that because there is a recession there are corresponding collapses in both international school enrolment and new school projects. These assumptions are totally incorrect and have more to do with the need to sensationalise than with objective reporting. The reality is that the English-medium international school market expanded by an average of 11% a year in each of the three years to August 2008 - both in terms of the number of schools and the number of students. ISC Research is currently producing an analysis of the academic year to August 09 but it is already clear that significant growth has continued throughout the year. There are many reasons for this: an unstoppable increase in demand for international schools places from local families, huge waiting lists at the start of the recession and a general understanding that international schools are a superb commercial investment.
Where schools have lost students it is almost entirely an expatriate phenomenon. Over the last couple of weeks ISC Research has surveyed 107 fee-paying, English-medium international schools. Of these, 38 say that their enrolment is stable, 57 that their enrolment is up and only 12 that enrolment is down. Schools that have lost students are mostly dependant on one or more large corporations that have downsized or closed local operations. Waiting lists are very significant and many countries like Hong Kong, Qatar and Switzerland had an acute shortage of places at the beginning of the recession. All schools with waiting lists can afford to lose some students because they will be immediately replaced. This is true of Dubai and London never mind Geneva and Hong Kong.
The world economic downturn has had a number of significant effects. Most schools made contingency plans in case of a sudden drop in enrolment and, although few have experienced a decline, the effect on budgets has been significant. For example many building development and other capital projects are on hold for a year. There has also been a change in the patterns of staff recruitment: staff are staying in post rather than moving and there are many more applicants for vacant positions.
Regarding new school projects, some have been delayed but many others are going ahead at full speed. An analysis of two sections of the ISC Research online system (the "Future" schools part of Market Overview and stories in the News section) show 98 new school projects at various stages of development. These are only listed where we have definite information; there are many more that will be listed as detailed information becomes available. Of the 98, three quarters are in Asia including 28 schools in the Middle East (Western Asia). 8 countries have 4 or more new school projects planned. The UAE as a whole leads with a total of 18 followed by South Korea (9), India, (8), Hong Kong SAR (8), Vietnam (6), Malaysia (4), Switzerland (4), Qatar (4). For more information go to www.iscresearch.com.
In overall terms, the English-medium international school market is not just alive and well but positively thriving.
N Brummitt, 1 September 2009
Country Focus: Australia
| International Schools in Australia | |
|---|---|
| 87 | Total number of schools |
| 82,736 | Total number of students |
| 7,192 | Total number of staff |
| 46 | Number of schools offering education for 3-5 year olds |
| 52 | Number of schools offering education for 5-11 year olds |
| 79 | Number of schools offering education for 11-13 year olds |
| 75 | Number of schools offering education for 13-16 year olds |
| 75 | Number of schools offering education for 16-18 year olds |
| 0 | Number of schools offering all or part UK curriculum |
| 1 | Number of schools offering all or part US curriculum |
| 43 | Number of schools offering all or part international curriculum |
International School Roundup
Spain: Murcia schools to become bilingual next school year
Asia: international school boom cools amid crisis
Australia: International education at crossroads
Vietnam: international schools set sky high tuition fees
Hong Kong: Harrow to open school
Australia: tightening laws to cleanse education sector
Australia: losing international students to UK and Canada
These news stories are a small sample taken from the ISC Research Online System.
For more information call ISC Research on 01367 246007 or email tl@isc-r.com.
What are the advantages to being a subscriber?
By subscribing to ISC Research Limited you will gain access to the richest schools market in the world. This market is growing at an extraordinary rate and almost certainly has a greater value than the current UK schools market. Many companies spend a huge amount marketing and selling to UK schools and very little internationally. Yet compared to UK schools, schools abroad are often isolated and have little access to information, representatives, presentations etc. Sales prospects are enormous and they are getting bigger day by day. Using ISC Research Limited's online system subscribers can map, analyse, target and contact over 4,600 English-medium schools worldwide. Taking the current annual growth rate of 11% there will be nearly 6,000 schools by 2010, well over 10,000 schools by 2015 & over 15,000 by 2020.
As well as researching new schools, the underlying database is constantly researched and updated to reflect innumerable changes in basic school information. ISC Research Limited specializes in providing detailed, up-to-date information about existing international schools, emerging international schools and trends in the market.
With the system you can:
- Analyse and target schools by geography, curriculum, examinations, membership of associations, pupil age, etc. using Search
- Show results using a graphics interface
- Access the up-to-date international schools News Section
- Use the Market Overview and Statistics Section to follow trends
- Find and contact international school organisations
- Manage communications appropriately and effectively with integrated e-mail and mailing utilities
- Single or multiple user subscriptions are available to suppliers, service organisations and parents.
- For free temporary access and system demonstration contact ISC Research Limited.
We really like this new service. Cambridge International Examinations
has been able to use the ISC Research service as a one-stop shop for
targeting and contacting schools. The service is extremely useful: the
data is much more comprehensive and up-to-date than anything else and we
are able to find new schools as they open.
Peter Monteath,Research & Strategy Manager,
University of Cambridge International Examinations
The Council of International Schools (http://www.cois.org) is
delighted, on behalf of its member schools, with this new arrangement
with ISC Research, that gives our members access to the substantive data
held by ISC on International Schools around the world. CIS is providing
ISC with the public domain data it holds on its member schools, while
both organisations will feed each other up-dated data, so ensuring that
entries are current. CIS will continue to collect compensation data as
part of its joint annual survey with ECIS, but this data will remain
confidential and will, as in the past, only be made available to member
schools who have responded to the survey.
Richard Tangye, Executive Director of CIS
ISC Research has enabled me rapidly to develop a marketing strategy
for international schools. Targeted marketing in this highly lucrative
sector would have been impossible otherwise. I recommend this to anyone
seriously interested in this market.
Ian Bourne, Managing Director, Citnexus
The new arrangements give both organisations and member schools
access to the vast amount of non-confidential data held by ISC Research
about the rapidly growing number of international schools around the
world. It would be impossible for us or member schools to do this work
ourselves. We look forward to working with ISC Research on appropriate
research projects.
Roger Fry, Chair of COBIS
I am so impressed that the new system
can do this (store files on the server so that they may be sent as
links) - it's great that the file does not appear as an attachment which
means it is a great way for us to reach international schools with our
catalogue.
Alice Hutt: Classroom Video
