Learning
Looking to the East John Hutchison offers some guidance for schools considering China The UK office for national statistics reported that there were more than 70,000 Chinese students who went to the UK to study between June 2015 and June 2016 (valued at 200 billion RMB). As the Chinese ‘Study Abroad’ market continues to grow steadily, it is a logical place for schools to go to for new recruits. But with a market crammed full of local and international agents of varying quality, how do you get the most out of your marketing efforts? Making a marketing/recruitment trip to China has become a very popular and exciting choice among British schools in recent years. But travelling around China on your own and making various arrangements can be quite difficult, hence many schools have chosen to work with Chinese partners to ease the arrangements and maximise results. Unfortunately, however, we are aware that a number of schools are being overpromised by partners or agents in China. It is therefore quite important for the schools to make a careful choice about who they work with to avoid any disappointment or, potentially, a trip disaster. The key things schools should look for when choosing a partner are: • Is the partner an organisation with a focus on UK school placements? Many agents might come up with big numbers of students they place every year, but 99% of these students are applicants to universities rather than schools. • Does the partner mainly focus on British education? A lot of Chinese agents focus on all the English speaking countries such as the United States, Australia, Canada and Singapore. • How many offices has the partner got and where are these offices located? Gabbitas Education currently has 3 offices in China – Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou – covering the major first tier cities and the provinces around these cities, where the highest national GDP % growths are. We provide tailor-made services to very high end Chinese families and our staff have been working closely with British schools on their China visits since 2009. We have arranged large events where the school gives speeches, presentations and shows school videos, as well as smaller seminars where school representatives can meet the potential families. The schools can also interview the students and see whether they would be suitable candidates. We arrange for UK schools to meet with Chinese bilingual or international schools to discuss potential co-operation and help the schools with their visa invitation letters, transport and accommodation arrangements, as well as providing an interpreting service. By way of example, let’s take the visit of Windlesham House School to China in May 2017. Lucy Thornton from the school’s marketing and admissions department visited Guangzhou on the 17th of May 2017, where she and her colleagues made a presentation at an event attended by 500 people. Afterwards they interviewed 12 potential students and three of them were
offered a chance to visit the school for potential enrolment. The school also attended two seminars in Shanghai and Beijing, and met over 20 families. Lucy comments, ‘Our visit to China was extremely productive for Windlesham and working with Gabbitas was very much part of the experience. We had the opportunity to explain what a prep school education is about and its benefits, and also built a stronger relationship with Gabbitas which was one of our objectives. We met some lovely families and several have been over to Windlesham.’ John Hutchison is CEO of Gabbitas For more information on Gabbitas Education in China, please contact Sofie.Liao@gabbitas.com
Spring 2018
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