In the last two years, the pioneering territories for international schools in the UAE and China have hit some problems. China is posing regulatory challenges from time to time, which impacts enrolment numbers and the predictability of any ramp-up. While the UAE has experienced an economic slowdown much like the rest of the world and the slowdown has re-written the demand-supply relationship in Dubai, for example.
This year’s top education Investment Conference at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Dubai was revealing.
It showed that investors in the Gulf Region have now made their corrections to allow for slower growth and greater competition in the UAE. And they have started to bounce back and seize new opportunities that have naturally emerged. The key metric is the number of deals and that number has more than doubled in the last couple of years.
Acquisitions, mergers, exits, property offloads, restructuring. This is suddenly a very busy sector.
It is the seventh year of the Investment Conference (EdEX) and I still find it the best opportunity to rub shoulders with investors and operators, while taking a business view rather than, predominantly, an educational one. Of course, I am biased because I have had the chance to chair, or co-chair, six of the seven annual events. I get the best seat in the house and the bonus of being able to interrogate investors, operator, educators and governments about their experiences, insights and outlook.
I found this year’s event to be the best yet. The panels and presenters were on the button. The conference hall stayed busy right through the day. Usually, conferences in the region trail off through the afternoon, but this one kept the audience engaged.
For me, the highlight presentations were Kaustubh Bodhankar, who introduced the new ‘school of the future’ that the GSF group has built in Singapore, and Jaspal Sidhu, who brought great insights to the event based on the growth of his Indonesian school group. Well done, both.
The other big stand-out was the representation and contribution from Saudi Arabia. We had two Deputy Ministers at the event plus SAGIA, the government agency that supports businesses seeking to enter, develop and grow in the Kingdom. We had Saudi investors and operators too.
Talk about a change in the weather! They brought appetite and openness with them to the event. Their presentations were crisp and professional. The messages were even better and it is clear that Saudi Arabia is now ready to deliver on the long promise it has offered to open up their education sector to private investors and operators.
My theme for the Dubai-based conference has always been to share (‘sharek’). For more than 10 years, the Gulf Region has provided a large enough market for many to prosper and, with Saudi opening up, this fact is more true than ever. It is best if investors talk to each other, share perspectives, build contacts and swap numbers. The impact on investment analytics and confidence is well worth it.
And there is now an excellent balance for investors in terms of opportunities. Each sector offers a host of opportunities: early years and kindergartens, schools and k-12, vocational and technical education, university and higher education colleges, educational services and EdTech.
And there is a near-perfect balance of geographies that offer different risk-reward balances: the ‘maturing markets’ of the UAE for those who thrive in the competition for quality that this involves; the ‘additional markets’ such as Oman, Bahrain and Kuwait which suit investors and operators seeking to prove they can diversity their base beyond the conventional locations; and the ‘open ground’ where pioneers and system-builders in Saudi will be able to follow, and improve on, the 10-15 year journey the UAE has taken towards a strong educational eco-system.
The UAE changes have taken place at breathtaking pace when you compare them with other reforms around the world.
But my prediction is that Saudi – because of its attributes as well as its size – will not take as long to develop into a mature market. And, paradoxically, it will not reach capacity so quickly. So there is a big, big market there with a long, long future for those who can get their minds round what the country and its people need.
The Gulf region continues to demand attention for its leading role in defining private educational investment and operations, globally, for the future. Watch it and learn.
