International schools have grown at a fantastic rate in the last 20 years and one of my favourite statistics is the difference between the number of teachers in International Schools in the year 2000 (about 90,000 teachers) compared with 2017 (over 460,000).
That means that the number of teachers in International Schools today is equal to a good-size country, such as England. Those people who are concerned about teacher recruitment in International Schools might like to reflect on the fact that countries have self-supporting, teacher-supply conveyor belts. International Schools do not. The strategy of International Schools essentially depends on attracting teachers away from government systems in a limited number of countries and, ultimately, that is an expensive approach.
Time for a change? Yes. Change will come – although it is not yet as urgent as people think. Mainly because the ‘advanced countries’ have un-recognised over-supply. Plus the growth in the International Sector has allowed most good schools to meet the inflationary pressures by paying more or syphoning off the talent from their rivals.
My question today is:
Are there other changes that will make a more urgent impact on the sector?
Yes, I think so and I want to write about a few of them.
The first one is in Ed Tech and this thought comes from my friend Phil Redhead, who is one of those great people in global education who is always worth listening to about educational futures. Phil reckons that we are on the cusp of someone making the first, major Learning Assistant for the home (or maybe a mobile device?). Think of Siri or Alexa, only your child can ask the learning device any question they like about their school work; and the Assistant will provide an explanation – and probably mail a video.
That could change a lot. It could accelerate the experience of school learning away from ‘the Class of the Many’ to the ‘Everyday Life of the One’. That will be close to personalisation.
The second change is already happening, fast, and it is in the rise of international school chains. I have written about this before and today, in my inbox, I got the latest report from LEK Consultants who have been looking at international education developments in China. They rank the top 30 listed companies in education, worldwide, with the Edtech giant TAL top of the list and Pearson, the publishers, third. The really interesting fact for me is that if you added the top school chains to the list, two would be in the top 5 and perhaps four would be in the top 10.
The main reason they are not there yet – other than the nursery group, Bright Horizons – is because most are un-listed.
This change is important because it shows that, gradually and relentlessly, there is a shift in commercial power in international education away from the suppliers (traditionally textbook publishers, resource providers, equipment sales, even examination bodies) to the front-line school operators. It is surely going to lead to more expectations being set by the operators, in the future.
And there is a glorious irony when you put those first two changes together. We could be at the point for school operators when they could take charge of the market, and of defining new products and services, only to see the market stolen from under their feet by a new technological revolution like a Learning Assistant arriving in the home.
Ah well, no change is simple these days.
For my third trend, I want to point to increasing competition in the international school market. The trend is best seen in the Middle East where the past leaders in the global charge to international schools have been cities like Dubai and Abu Dhabi. In parts of these markets, the competition has heated up. I am amused that the reaction or chatter in the market has been along the lines that “Dubai is saturated”, or similar.
Nonsense. Dubai is not saturated with great suppliers; look at the inspection data that reflects the quality of its international schools. These show that there are excellent opportunities for people who know what they are doing. Now yes, it is true that you can no longer enter the market knowing almost nothing about operating a school. For me, that is good news and it speaks of a classic new growth phase, based on exciting opportunities to steal market share in a maturing market.
After all, the reasons that Dubai and Abu Dhabi have been the leading cities globally for international schools have not disappeared. They are – in general – well-regulated, predictable markets that work to the rule of law and contract, with intelligent consumers who want quality and assurance, where you have transparency about issues of ownership and quality, as well as superb facilities to attract young and talented teachers.
You can choose to go and set up a school in a market elsewhere where almost anyone can ‘have a go’, but that does not motivate me as highly. Frankly, the risks are much higher and no doubt we will grab some work in these regions but I believe that the Middle East remains the place where the future of international schooling is being invented.
For the hungry, there are great acquisition opportunities there as well.
The fourth trend is in the growth of international education consultancies and perhaps I should be brief about this one, because of self-interest. I started our consulting business six years ago in the MENA region and there were very few of us making our way, except perhaps for those that reached out from the USA and UK with school consulting arms attached to existing businesses. It was hard to sell services; the market was not formed.
Now, there are a few consultancies who can offer real quality. Yes, you should look very carefully indeed at what they have achieved because there are a new host of people pretending to be consultants when (a) they have personal rather than consulting history, and (b) their personal history has a limited range. The best people have been on the ground a long time and they have already learned something about what really succeeds and what fails. It is never quite what gets talked about.
But the good news is that the market is now forming, there are options about consultant, and the focus is very much shifting to Impact.
We think, for example, that a good number of the schools we have supported could not have opened on time without us. They are a whole year quicker along the route to achieving financial returns on their large capital investments. We are three times the size of our business two years ago so, yes, I am enjoying watching the consulting world grow in this sector.
For my fifth and final trend, I want to head back to the student and the learner. I have commented that the biggest change between schools today and schools in 50 years will be that in the future, “students will be in charge”. I can see the shift happening already and it excites me. Like the early rattling in what will become a seismic shift, students are becoming more active in classrooms, they are providing more feedback, they are gaining more voice in running schools, innovative school chains are using some as co-teachers, and students are sometimes taking full control of the extra-curricular programme.
Yesterday in Ankara, an excellent conference looking into recent changes in the local schools came to a crescendo when the stage was turned over to a panel of six 12-year-old and 13-year-old students who explained what the changes meant to them. It was not a prepared presentation but a Question-and-Answer session between them and the audience. It was way better – and way more important – than just talking to the consultants or the teachers.
I sometimes think that our future will come faster, and better, when we keep hold of the idea that we are parents, and the children need us, but we could do more to get out of the students’ way as well!
Those are five trends that I find important. Can you point to others and improve on my list?
