ISC Research Newsletter: March 2009
Newsletter: March 2009
In This Issue:
- How to weather the economic maelstrom
- Country Focus: UAE
- ISC Research launches new email engine
- Latest international school news
- What are the advantages to being a subscriber
- Contact ISC Research
- Visit the ISC Research web site
Current Market Size
| Current Market Size | |
|---|---|
| Total number of English-medium international schools (not including future schools) | 5,222 |
| Total number of students | 2,170,424 |
| Changes since 01 January 2009 | |
| New school records | 144 |
| Updated (many schools are updated several times a year) | 2,361 |
| Checked (no changes) | 1,945 |
| Heads updated (names and/or email addresses) | 462 |
| Heads checked | 1,706 |
| Emails changed | 512 |
How to weather the economic maelstrom
by Ziad Azzam, CEO of the Taaleem Group of Schools
While new stories emerge every day that only seem to reinforce the gloomy state of this global economic slowdown, Ziad Azzam, CEO of leading UAE-based school management organisation, Taaleem, illustrates how schools can batten down the hatches yet keep their sights set firmly on the future as the international education industry weathers these tempestuous times.
The likelihood is that, as principals, senior management, owners or governors of international schools, you're facing one or more of the following challenges:
-
A drop in enrolment as an increasing number of parents struggle to meet fee payments
-
Dipping staff morale (and therefore efficiency) as the mass exodus of expatriates means you have to start trimming employee numbers and managing staff jitters about security and job loss.
-
Difficulty raising capital for specific projects, expansion plans etc.
As head of a school management organization that not only operates eight schools in the UAE but is also stoking the fires of its ambitious expansion plans, Ziad Azzam is well acquainted with the impact of the economic downturn on the education fraternity. To give you an idea of the context within which I'm talking, let me first set the scene. Taaleem was established to answer the varying educational demands of the UAE's very multi-cultural population. Between our schools, we therefore offer the full range of top international curricula, which means our experience of these belt-tightening times is distilled from our experiences with families from every conceivable country, nationality and culture. What I'd like to share with you is our experience, almost as a case study, and illustrate how Taaleem proposes to meet the challenges ahead.
I have three major messages, each relating to the three challenges outlined above. The first is simply this: to keep enrolments up, you need to know your market and be flexible. This means taking a close look at what impact the economic climate is having on the population in your catchment areas. In the UAE, job losses mean we're witnessing the exodus of many expatriates, so we're looking to the grass roots of the region for our long-term sustainability.
Where we are in the GCC region, there is huge and unmet demand for Early Childhood Education. And this isn't just a local reality - it's true in most global environments, so the chances are it's relevant to where you are, too. Speaking with my educator's hat on, if the climate of the times forces us to look at providing the very best Early Childhood education, this can only be advantageous, because pre-school programmes help mould a child's long-term attitude towards school and education.
Since getting it right in these early years is essential, at Taaleem we've invested in rolling out our own tailor-made, multi-lingual Early Childhood programme at The Children's Garden (TCG) pre-school. Now in its fourth year, we're delighted that our children have at least two languages tucked securely under their belts when they complete the programme. That said, our most significant achievement is the way our emphasis on languages and multiculturalism helps TCG leavers settle smoothly and confidently into many different types of schools all over the world - which fits exactly the needs of the UAE's internationally mobile local and expatriate populations.
Flexibility is just as important as knowing your market. If you need to adjust the positioning of your schools so you're more relevant to the local market, then so be it. Top end international schools are likely to come under considerable scrutiny here. If in the past, providers of international education have ignored the local population in whatever catchment area they operate, then they will now need to re-think their strategy. Here in the UAE, for example, they will need to continue to provide the same high quality, while at the same time making sure they also offer sufficient Arabic language and Islamic social studies classes to meet the demands of those families who are very much rooted to this part of the world.
Taaleem has always taken care to celebrate the host nation in all our schools, making culturally relevant teaching a real focus in our increasingly international world. So while we don't need to change in that respect, what we are having to look at within our existing schools is an expansion of our KG provision. By this, I mean expand in a way that wasn't part of the original strategic plan for the school. Let me be explicit: in times like these, you need to revisit your strategic plan for your school in terms of development. At Uptown School, an IB PYP school of ours, the original plan was always to have four KG1 classes feeding four KG2 classes which then fed into Primary. But now we're talking about re-jigging that solution to expand our KG1 and KG2 provision to meet the huge demand for it, and cut back on some of the older classes as more of our families head back home and numbers in the higher years dwindle.
Investing in really understanding your market, not ignoring the permanent local population and working to meet the long-term cultural needs and education demands of the host region as well as its sizeable population of expatriates, has resulted in sound financial opportunities opening up to reputable education providers. And this in turn means that the future we're facing at the moment is surprisingly positive, and that Taaleem's plans for development and improvement remain a priority, with Early Childhood provision as our front runner.
My second major message relates to managing the nervousness of staff: do everything you can to banish uncertainty and promote a happy, secure working environment. It's at times like these that most businesses, including schools, look at their operational efficiency, and if you have to make hard decisions, you simply have to make them. So make them once, deliver the bad news, then the best thing you can do as a leader of the school is to invest an enormous amount of time and effort into managing morale, making people feel comfortable and valued, and to try to manage negativity as much as you can so it doesn't eat away at the efficient management of the school. Send reassuring messages about your position, financially. If you are in a precarious financial situation, openness is usually the best policy as the rumour mill never stops grinding and also because you never know who'll come to the rescue of your school, especially if historically you've made a strong link with the local community. If your financial position is robust, communicate that, too, as it'll help make people feel secure.
As for my third and final message: there are plenty of investors looking to back sound educational initiatives. Even though raising capital today is difficult for almost any industry, ironically for the education sector, there are a lot of opportunities, probably more so today than a year or so ago. We've had private equity firms, venture capital firms - i.e. 'smart capital' in finance speak - approaching us recently because they realise that there's a lucrative opportunity for investment in the education sector right now. The money men are focusing again on the fundamentals, looking for long-term, stable investments. Since the need for high quality education is on-going, the current climate means that investors value the security of such an investment.
What they want to see is intelligent, forward-looking planning for the future: planning that offers real quality, real understanding of the market and the flexibility to deliver accordingly. Now is the time to invest in 21st Century Early Childhood programmes, just as now is the time for several international schools to bring about some realignment of the curriculum in order to accommodate a more inclusive attitude towards celebrating the heritage of the region. And finally, with governments increasingly grasping the importance of educational reform and welcoming knowledge sharing with seasoned experts, the future looks bright for forward thinkers within the education industry.
Country Focus: UAE
| International Schools in UAE | |
|---|---|
| 250 | Total number of schools |
| 172,842 | Total number of students |
| 13,327 | Total number of staff |
| 229 | Number of schools offering education for 3-5 year olds |
| 198 | Number of schools offering education for 5-11 year olds |
| 168 | Number of schools offering education for 11-13 year olds |
| 159 | Number of schools offering education for 13-16 year olds |
| 121 | Number of schools offering education for 16-18 year olds |
| 68 | Number of schools offering all or part UK curriculum |
| 16 | Number of schools offering all or part US curriculum |
| 194 | Number of schools offering all or part international curriculum |
ISC Research launch new email engine
On the 23rd March 2009 ISC Research unveiled the latest development of its market leading online system. This is the first of a number of planned updates for 2009 which aim to ensure that the ISC Research system continues to deliver outstanding value for money to subscribers.
The major change this time will be invisible to users but fundamentally amend the way emails are sent.
As filters to prevent the delivery of unwanted mails are becoming more aggressive so more and more legitimate mail is being caught in error. ISC Research takes keeping their clients in touch with the marketplace very seriously and so have redesigned their email engine to ensure that, so far as is possible, no email sent through it will be regarded as illegitimate (clearly individual mails created using the system may still be identified as illegal but this is due to content and not the system itself).
The ISC Research online system remains incredibly intuitive, allowing users to keep in touch with the world of international schools via a tabbed online interface.
For more information call ISC Research on 01367 246007 or email tl@isc-r.com.
Latest International School News
New school opens in Spain
New school in Karachi
France: Grants for international students
Singapore: international school numbers up
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.
