MARKETING & ADMISSIONS
Several factors are putting a strain on relations with China. MP Andrew Lewer MBE, Chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Independent Education gives us a frank and honest personal view about the challenges of international student recruitment
F
irstly, I would like to lay my motivations on the table. An appreciation and respect for the independent education sector, support for increased state/independent school partnerships, and a belief that the sector can benefit wider society even more than it does already with greater government support (co-sponsored bursaries, some modern version of Assisted Places or even a Dutch or Australian style voucher scheme for example) led me to found and to Chair the All Party Parliamentary Group for Independent Education. It is not the most fashionable cause in Westminster, but I believe in it. It is, therefore, very much as an ally that I make some possibly uncomfortable observations.
“It would be a mistake to think that geo-politics does not affect the sector” Value of international fees
The large number of international students in UK independent schools and colleges is a source of pride to most people in the sector. They have given an extra educational dimension for domestic students learning and living alongside their international classmates. They have provided an important – and for some 22
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schools a critical – source of additional revenue. This has also benefitted the UK economy, both in overall revenue terms and particularly for the local areas where successful independent schools are based. Whether a large international contingent in UK schools has also contributed to fee inflation is a separate discussion, but the significance of international fee income is indisputable. The question is, how probable is continued fee income from the Chinese market? I would suggest that a very large slice of this revenue is now at risk and it is highly likely to diminish even further in the future. This reasoning is due to two converging factors: at the exact time coronavirus struck, with the huge challenges it has brought to the independent education sector and the incomes of its customers, the not entirely unrelated issue of relations with China has come to the fore. It cannot be ignored. As a sector, we need to talk about China.
Getting real
I try to be wary of Godwin’s Law in my article-writing and speech-giving. The ‘law’ has numerous versions, the relevant one in this case is: ‘whoever mentions the Nazis has automatically lost whatever argument was in progress.’ But it is very difficult to avoid when you have a state with around 1,000,000 people in concentration camps, actively sterilising thousands of women for being the ‘wrong’ race and religion and is trading the organs and hair products of prisoners. Vocal and high-level abhorrence at the activities of the Chinese state is no longer a fringe position – the Foreign Secretary himself said on the
