By Lucy Hornby
BEIJING, Jan 14 (Reuters) – The website for a private school
in Changzhou, one of China’s smaller cities, features blue
blazers and plaid skirts, music classes and an ivy-clad brick
doorway — all the trappings of the British school system
designed to appeal to wealthy Chinese parents.
In choosing a smaller city, Oxford International College –
no relation to the British university – is tapping into a
growing market of upwardly-mobile Chinese willing to pay as much
as 260,000 yuan ($41,700) a year for a Western-style education
and a ticket to college overseas for their children.
“Changzhou is quite an affluent area and many people want to
send their kids overseas, so the proportion of Chinese students
is ticking up. The expat community is not enough to justify a
school,” said Frank Lu, the general manager of Oxford
International Colleges of China.
“The market really is the Chinese – it’s the Chinese who
want their children to go abroad and are willing to pay the
fees.”
Some of the schools offer programmes specifically tailored
to British A-levels or the U.S. Advanced Placement tests; all
promise the English proficiency needed to attend a foreign
university.
In a sign of the eagerness to get the Changzhou school up
and running, classes have already started even though the campus
– complete with an artificial lake and boathouse – is under
construction until September.
That international aura is key to persuading ambitious
Chinese parents to pay steep tuition fees. Many schools feature
foreign-looking children on their websites or name themselves
after elite schools in Britain or North America.
Oxford International is one example. Then there is
EtonHouse, a Singaporean company that operates schools in eight
Chinese provincial cities.
Maple Leaf Educational Systems has expanded to seven cities
in China from its original home in Dalian, a northeastern
Chinese port city, by offering a curriculum endorsed by the
British Columbia board of education in Canada.
Established British schools like Harrow and Dulwich are also
expanding their branches in China.
“My dad wanted me to go abroad at an early age, but my mom
did not support the idea,” said Jiang Xin, the 17-year old son
of a real estate developer, whose parents compromised by sending
him to Maple Leaf’s Chongqing campus at 50,000 yuan a year.
“In the future I want to study abroad. My experience here at
Maple Leaf is helping me adapt to the Western learning style
earlier.”
Indeed, many wealthy Chinese parents see these schools as a
way to get a foreign-style education while keeping their only
children close to home.
“Later when she goes overseas to college we will have few
chances to see her. We treasure the time we have with her now,”
said Zhuang Zhengyi, the head of the parents association for
Oxford International in Changzhou, where his daughter is in
tenth grade.
The number of international schools registered in mainland
China has skyrocketed in the past 12 years, from 22 to 338,
according to Nicholas Brummitt, managing director of the
Britain-based International School Consultancy Group. Enrollment
has risen by 25 times in the same period, to 184,073 students.
Overall, 28.8 million students attend state-run primary or
middle schools in Chinese cities, which are officially free but
in reality charge a number of fees.
PROVINCIAL POTENTIAL
Just under half the international schools in China are in
provincial cities like Changzhou, well apart from the main
expatriate centers of Beijing, Shanghai or Guangdong. The trend
coincides with the increasing incomes of China’s middle-classes,
who are spread across the country, and their aspirations.
Parents who can afford it believe the international schools
are the passport to a better life for their children, despite
the steeply higher costs. They offer the chance for a university
education overseas, avoiding the pressure cooker of the national
college entrance exam, taken by more than 9 million Chinese
students last June.
There are good state schools in every city, but the problem
is their teaching is aimed entirely to the university entrance
exams.
“This hurts students’ confidence and the quality of the
teaching,” said Xu Jin, whose 16-year-daughter started at a
branch of Dulwich College in Suzhou city in September.
“She was at the best public school but we were more and more
dissatisfied. The teachers just taught the right answers and
didn’t want the students to ask why… We can already see the
difference. She’s happier and learning faster.”
The international schools in Beijing or Shanghai generally
are limited by law to foreign passport-holders. But that’s not
the case in many provincial cities, where growth in private
education including bilingual schools is exploding.
For newly wealthy Chinese parents, the international schools
offer an alternative to China’s conformist, competitive
exam-based state school system, and, some say, make for more
well-rounded youngsters.
But other parents are not entirely ready to jettison the
Chinese education system and want to retain both options –
applying overseas and taking the national college exams.
For them, companies like Tianjin-based Compass Education and
Australian education services provider Dipont Education offer
joint-venture international sections within established public
schools, with an average tuition fee of up to 100,000 yuan a
year. That lowers costs and cultural barriers.
“International education is not mark-centric, which is a
brand-new idea for parents from second-tier cities,” said
Compass board member Gavin Newton-Tanzer.
“For Chinese parents it’s a totally different idea. Their
children study only through memorising things.”
The joint-venture schools offer the best of both worlds, he
added.
“Students can still be exposed to Chinese learning, which is
more acceptable for local parents.”
($1 = 6.2303 Chinese yuan)
(Additional reporting by Beijing Newsroom; Editing by Raju
Gopalakrishnan)
