APAC EDUCATION
A NEW ERA FOR EXPATRIATE EDUCATION IN CHINA?
China has rarely left the education press’s spotlight in recent months. Earlier this year, news broke of the first state-funded academy trust in England to open a fee-paying branch there. Joint-venture schools are emerging in response to local laws preventing the admission of local students, and the International Baccalaureate has announced Beijing as the location of its 1,000th approved programme in the Asia Pacific region. Rebecca Marriage looks at how these changes affect families moving to the region, and what they mean when it comes to making school choices.
W
ith more global assignments in China than in any other country in the Asia Pacific region, it is little wonder that education choices and challenges for
families moving to China are a hot topic in the press. Diane Glass, head of business development at ISC Research,
speaking at the Re:locate International Education Forum held earlier this year, revealed that there were 525 English-medium international schools in China. Most of these are located in Tier 1 cities, with 23 per cent in Beijing and 22 per cent in Shanghai. Many others are located in the provincial capitals, such as Chengdu and Guangzhou.
Education challenges But, according to recent reports, the cost of attending fee-paying English-medium schools in the region, with the scarcity of school places, is creating significant challenges for relocating families. The Global Times in China recently reported that school fees
were beyond the reach of many expatriate families, even those on relocation packages. A software engineer at Microsoft told the paper that he had made the tough decision to move back to Seattle after discovering that sending his son to a Western
school in Beijing “costs more than a college education – at least $30,000 every year”. At the Re:locate International Education Forum, Avrom
Goldberg, senior vice-president, global solutions, at Lexicon Relocation, presented key findings from the company’s China Global Mobility 360 Survey. Education concerns, he said, were among the top challenges for assignees. Likewise, in its Trends in Global Relocation: Biggest Challenges
Survey, Cartus found that China sat firmly in the top three countries in which schooling challenges were most frequently found. Cartus also reports that it is increasingly difficult to source places in international schools, with many having waiting periods of at least six months.
1,000th International Baccalaureate programme However, with a recent announcement about the International Baccalaureate (IB), there is some good news for families seeking an international education in China. The IB Organisation announced earlier this year that it had authorised its 1,000th programme in the Asia Pacific region at the Keystone Academy, a bilingual school in Beijing which draws from Chinese, American and international learning.
58 | Re:locate | Summer 2016
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