International Schools: Whose Defi nition

International Schools: Whose Definition is it Anyway?

by Ziad Azzam

Remember the good old days?...

Ido not mean the shoulder-padded 80s, just-plainweird 70s, or the liberating 60s. I am referring to 2019, when educators could still meet, from time to time, in a conference hall, and a teacher could, without fear of contracting a frightful disease or (at the very least) inviting the wrath of the social-distance watchers, pat her colleague on the shoulder for his uncanny ability to fool the school inspector, yet again, into awarding him an ‘outstanding’ rating. Those were the days!

I caught myself, quite recently, in a moment of reflection (or should I say reminiscence) about an event that preceded surgical masks on every face, everywhere you looked. The date was October 2019, and the event was the World Conference organised by the Alliance for International Education (AIE).

Over 155 delegates were in attendance from, by my estimate, at least 20 countries. We were hosted by Ecole Internationale de Genève (Ecolint), a school that can legitimately claim the mantle of being the cradle of international education. Founded in 1924 by civil servants from the newly established International Labour Organization (ILO) and League of Nations, Ecolint has the added distinct honour of being the birthplace of the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme. The school lists three factors that set it apart from others: • Incomparably International – stemming from Ecolint’s diverse student body, representing 140 nationalities and 80 mother tongues; • Educating for a Better World – relating to the school’s raison d’être of “educating for peace and to inculcate strong humanitarian values of inclusiveness, respect and intercultural understanding”; and • Inclusive, Innovative and Academically Rigorous – combining academic rigour with the ethos of child-centric education and a non-selective admissions policy. During the said conference, the inevitable plenary session on trends and future challenges in international education took centre stage (literally) one afternoon. In it, the delegate from ISC Research shared ISCR’s 10-year global projections on numbers of ‘international’ schools, students, teachers, and fee income. And the statistics were staggering:

8,000 additional ‘international’ schools by 2029, catering to five million additional ‘international’ students, and staffed by half a million additional ‘international’ teachers. Where will all these teachers come from?, we were all left wondering; and how will the great and mighty ‘teacher factories’ from the predominantly AngloSaxon/English-speaking world possibly cope with this explosive demand? For me, and I am sure for some other conference delegates, these questions reeked of the legacies of Western colonialism: the ‘White Man’s Burden’ rearing its ugly head once more (Kipling, 1899).

I have lived in Dubai practically all of my life, and I have spent the past 25 years working in some capacity or another within its education system. Like the city itself, Dubai’s pre-tertiary education system has undergone remarkable growth in 65 years. Up until the mid-1950s, Dubai had but 200-odd students attending a single formal school, Al’Ahmadiah, which is believed to have been established in 1910 (Alhebsi, Pettaway & Waller, 2015). In contrast, in 2017 Dubai had 276 so-called ‘international’ schools and early childhood facilities, the highest in any city in the world (ISCR, 2018). Over a period of 23 years, the number of students enrolled in Dubai’s K-12 sector (both public and private) has almost trebled, from 113,866 students in 1996 to 310,036 students in 2019 (MOE, 2019). However, the narrative around Dubai’s education system is not all about growth and progress. In contrast to the rapid expansion of the private K-12 education sector, public schools have stagnated. In 1996, public education accounted for 34% of Dubai’s pre-tertiary student population; today it accounts for less than 10%. Enrolment in public schools has actually decreased during the past 20 years, from 38,756 students in 1996 to 29,387 students in 2019, while the student population in private schools has

The first private schools in Dubai were established to serve the needs of its nascent expatriate community.

risen from 75,110 to 280,979 during the same period, amounting to a 374% growth (MOE, 2019). Perhaps the most noteworthy trend during the past 23 years is the exodus of Emirati students from public to private schooling. In 1996, only 25% of Emiratis attended private schools; by 2019, that percentage had grown to 57%.

The first private schools in Dubai were established to serve the needs of its nascent expatriate community. One such example is the Dubai English Speaking School (DESS). Founded in 1963, the school offers the National Curriculum for England from Foundation Stage to Year 6, with priority for admissions given to children of British descent. Until Dubai College opened its doors in 1978, offering Years 7 to 13, most British expatriate families (by far the predominant European demographic amongst Dubai’s resident population) whose children had completed Year 6 at DESS had to send their children to boarding school in the United Kingdom or elsewhere. Alongside DESS and Dubai College stood other expatriate community schools such as the American School of Dubai (est. 1966) and The Indian High School (est. 1961). Although serving different groups within Dubai’s expatriate population, these schools shared the common features of being community-owned and notfor-profit. The schools did, and indeed continue to, charge tuition fees, but at 

the time of their establishment (and to this day) most student fees were paid through sponsorship by the multinational companies that either partly/wholly owned the schools or otherwise employed the parents of the children on roll. With limited reach and ambition, and its reliance on corporate support, the not-for-profit model could not keep pace with the exponential growth of Dubai’s population, driven primarily by immigration.

With access to public schools being largely limited to Emirati nationals only, coupled with the not-for-profit sector’s inadequate supply of seats, members of Dubai’s growing expatriate community had to turn elsewhere for their children’s educational needs. Today, all but a few of the 200+ private schools operating in Dubai do so on a for-profit basis; in other words, they are either owned or operated by private, profit-seeking enterprises. Private schools have flourished over the past 23 years, more than doubling in number, and now account for 90% of the K-12 sector.

The first key question I wish to raise here is: are private schools in Dubai ‘international’? In order to answer this question, we must first debate the meaning of the term ‘international school’. The definition adopted by ISCR, and upon which it builds its statistical edifice, is this:

‘For the purposes of market intelligence, analysis and data collection, ISC Research includes an international school if the school delivers a curriculum to any combination of pre-school, primary or secondary students, wholly or partly in English outside an Englishspeaking country.’ (www.iscresearch.com/about-us/whowe-are)

I would like to take a moment now to analyse the above definition or, to be more precise, the implications that arise from it, and specifically ISCR’s assertion that international schools are those that ‘deliver a curriculum … wholly or partly in English outside an English-speaking country’. Why English, of all languages? I do understand the role that the English language plays in our increasingly globalised world (Carli et. al., 2003) and its historical significance as, arguably, the catalyst for the creation of schools that offered educational solutions to ‘displaced’ Anglo/American families during the first half of the twentieth century (Carder, 1991; 2007), these schools being the progenitors of today’s so-called

I find ISCR’s global international schooling industry. But surely the world has definition to be moved on over the past threequarters of a century. both limiting, I find ISCR’s definition to be both limiting, in one sense, and extending in another. Take the hypothetical in one sense, example of a French-speaking school in, say, one of the residential and extending suburbs of Algiers, which models itself along the educational and in another. ethical philosophical standards held by the likes of Ecolint and which, for the sake of argument, offers the International Baccalaureate continuum to Algerian and expatriate students living in the metropolis. Let us call this school ‘Exhibit A’. According to ISCR, such a school does not qualify as being ‘international’, simply because English is not its chosen medium of instruction. At the opposite end of the spectrum is another hypothetical school that embraces none of the philosophical underpinnings of Ecolint (and schools like it), with staff and student bodies that are mono-ethnic, but which happens to deliver its curriculum in English in a non-English speaking country. This is our ‘Exhibit B’ school. Counterintuitively, ISCR would classify such a school as being

‘international’. But what is so international about it?

The fact of the matter is that the majority of socalled ‘international’ schools in Dubai fall under the ‘Exhibit B’ category. These schools have come into existence not to cater to the “nomadic” elite from global business; nor are they particularly bothered about the “principles for global human development arising from, for example, the League of Nations and, later, the United Nations” (Hayden & Thompson, 1998; p. iv). These schools are there to fill a vacuum: the demand for affordable education by Dubai’s mushrooming expatriate population, who are denied access to free public education. They are the educational equivalent of the fast-food industry: cheap, convenient and filling.

The second and final key The assiduous reader question is: why does the will undoubtedly have been ‘international’ label matter? experiencing some level of frustration The counterargument in reading this article, for I have not that I might expect to exactly provided a ‘suitable’ alternative hear could be along the definition of an ‘international’ school to that of following lines: provided ISCR. It was never my intention to do so, nor do that we are consistent I claim any special expertise that would qualify me in our categorisation of for the task. For those interested in this question, international schools, what difference does it make what we call them? When it comes to the validity of data, analyses and future trends, I would probably side with ISCR. I I would refer them to the work of Hayden & Thompson (1998), de Mejia (2002) and Garcia (2009), among many others. But if you really want to know what an ‘international’ school is, or should aspire to be, spend a day or two at Ecolint. You will soon would also venture to add that get the feel for it. ISCR’s work is of great value to all who are involved in one way or another in the endeavour of education and schooling. The simple point I wish to make is that these data and trends are not of ‘international’ schools; they are of English-medium private or, if you prefer, independent schools, as per ISCR’s own categorisation. Some, but certainly not all, of these English-medium private/ independent schools may indeed be ‘international’, and many more that are ‘international’ are absent from the ISCR equation. Dr Ziad Azzam started his career as a teacher, was subsequently head of an international school in Dubai, and now

You may be thinking: where is the harm in calling these serves on the board of Taaleem in the UAE. schools international? I can think of two: ✉ ziadjazzam@gmail.com • A false sense of hope – With the exponential growth I need not remind you that today’s reality is far removed from this utopian picture, with nationalism and xenophobia on the rise in many parts of the world. in the kinds of schools that ISCR calls ‘international’, we may be lulled into believing that the world is accelerating towards a new enlightenment, where the promise of international mindedness, tolerance and acceptance of the other permeates international and intra-national human relations. Readers will not need reminding that today’s reality is far removed from this utopian picture, with nationalism and xenophobia on the rise in many parts of the world. • A false promise of attractive employment – Aspiring or newly qualified teachers who are full of enthusiasm for the philosophical underpinnings of the “global human development” agenda that Hayden and Thompson refer to in their typology of what constitutes an ‘international’ school (1998; p. iv) may find their hopes of finding schools that espouse these principles dashed. That is not to say that such schools do not exist, but that they are in the minority, and they are certainly not increasing in number at the rates predicted by ISCR. ◆

References

• Alhebsi A, Pettaway L D & Waller L (2015) A History of Education in the United Arab Emirates and Trucial Kingdoms. The Global eLearning

Journal, 4 (1) • Carli A, Guardiano C, Kauic-Bas M, Sussi E, Tessarolo M and Ussai M (2003) Asserting ethnic identity and power through language, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 29(5), 865-883. • Carder M (1991) The Role and Development of ESL Programmes in International Schools, In P L Jonietz and D Harris (eds) The World

Yearbook of Education. London: Kogan Page, pp 108-24. • Carder M (2007) Bilingualism in International Schools. A Model for

Enriching Language Education. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. • De Mejia A-M (2002) Power, Prestige and Bilingualism. International Perspectives on Elite Bilingual Education. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

• Garcia O (2009) Bilingual Education in the 21st Century. Oxford:

Wiley-Blackwell. • Hayden M and Thompson J (1998) Changing Times: The Evolution of the International School, In D Bingham (ed) The John Catt Guide to

International Schools. Woodbridge: John Catt Educational. • ISCR (2018) www.iscresearch.com/

• Kipling R (1899/1940) Rudyard Kipling’s Verse: Definitive Edition.

London: Hodder and Stoughton, pp 323-24. • MOE, UAE Ministry of Education (2019) www.moe.gov.ae/En/Pages/

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