The risks (and rewards) of exporting excellence
Navigating global risk in the education sector
Over the past five years the international footprint of Britain’s independent schools has ballooned. The 2025 Independent Schools Council census counts 115 overseas campuses educating over 86,000 pupils, up from 69 sites in 2020. The largest cluster (44) is in mainland China, followed by schools spread across the Gulf and South-East Asia. But the map is widening: recent launches include projects in Almaty and Lagos, a UK-branded campus on New York’s Long Island, and several openings in Japan despite a decade-long fall in that country’s youth population.
This outward march largely rests on a trio of overlapping forces. Rising middle-class wealth in emerging markets is now channelled into education, with families willing to pay London-level fees for a pathway to Oxbridge or the Ivy League. The academic brand still travels: A-levels and the broader English curriculum remain a global gold standard, recognised in more than 130 countries and by some 4,000 universities. At the same time, overseas income has become a welcome hedge against domestic headwinds, not least the newly applied 20 percent VAT on UK school fees; governing bodies are looking abroad to protect margins and fund bursaries at home.
Speed matters, but so does caution. Most schools expand through franchises or joint ventures, relying on local developers to fund, build and sometimes run the campus. When financing stalls or land titles aren’t as they seemed, both reputation and funding can suffer. Country-specific hazards add another layer of complexity: among other examples, China’s Patriotic Education Law, effective from 2024, obliges all schools – including foreign operators – to weave party doctrine into each subject and has already forced restructurings; Saudi Arabia’s headline promise of full foreign equity comes with a moving target of teacher-nationalisation quotas for certain subjects (Arabic/Islamic/social-studies); and Nigeria’s recent cap on hard-currency transfers for overseas school fees (albeit still in guideline form) shows how swiftly repatriation models can seize up. Such headaches may not make global headlines, yet international directors who have had to relocate, refund or rebrand at short notice know the pain.
To secure the benefits, not just avoid the risks, schools must place reliable local intelligence at the core of every transaction. Stress-testing potential partners – mapping ownership, political ties, and local track record before heads of terms – remains the first line of defence. Just as crucial is tapping into reliable local intelligence networks: testing assumptions and talking to regulators, rival operators and community stakeholders to learn which rules are enforced, which are quietly ignored, and who can stall permits, visas and fee approvals when policy suddenly shifts at national, state or municipal level. Finally, due-diligence findings must be baked into the legal process, with provisions for ongoing monitoring another way to ensure you stay one step ahead.
International campuses can burnish prestige and steady the balance sheet. But only schools that tap into local intelligence – and lock it into their contracts – will stay ahead of the curve.
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