Cricket, boarding-house names reminiscent of Harry Potter’s Hogwarts and ancient and peculiar customs are among the hallmarks of Britain’s leading private schools. Now they can be found in Singapore and Kazakhstan. As the domestic market softens, some of the most famous names in British education are building far-flung outposts. Harrow led the way in 1998 by setting up a school in Bangkok, where its straw boaters greatly amused the locals. It now has schools in Beijing and Hong Kong too. Sherborne, a private school in Dorset, has opened a branch in Qatar. From next year Wellington, a boarding school in Berkshire, will compete for Shanghai’s pupils with Dulwich, a south London day school, which already has a franchise there. At home, private schools are criticised for perpetuating privilege. Overseas, that may be precisely the appeal. ISC, a research company, estimates that some 6,300 ‘English-style’ schools were operating overseas by 2012, up from 2,600 a decade earlier (that category includes many commercial and stand-alone outfits, some of which have been around for decades). The market is growing by 6 percent a year. Overseas expansion creates an extra revenue stream for private schools — handy at a time of domestic austerity and falling admissions. Schools also tout their foreign branches to British parents, who increasingly want their offspring to learn about fast-growing bits of the world and, particularly, to pick up some Chinese (though in practice some offshoots of British private schools in China are so rigidly Anglophone that pupils are told off for speaking the language). The first international schools were set up in the 19th century in countries like Japan, Turkey and Switzerland, for the families of diplomats and business travellers. British private schools were set up in India with a rather different purpose: to educate the local elite to be British gentlemen. The new rash of British schools abroad combines something of both objectives. They are designed to appeal to a mixture of globetrotting parents and ambitious locals with an eye to a university education in Europe or America for their children. Pupils tend to write the International GCSE, which some consider tougher than the standard British test, and often the International Baccalaureate. The schools also offer a respite from traditional Asian rote learning and promote a more questioning outlook. Still, local aspirations die hard. One teacher in Hong Kong says it can be tough to persuade pupils to go home at night: some even try to sleep under their desks. In schools with a mixture of locals and foreigners, Chinese pupils tend to dominate orchestras and maths competitions. The Dubai-based GEMS school chain, meanwhile, has cheekily reversed the trend. The outfit, run by Sunny Varkey, an Indian entrepreneur, is busy setting up new schools in Switzerland and Uganda. It is also opening a clutch of private schools in England, at cheaper prices than the established competition. Inspiring Big Mac varsity British universities can be depressing. the dons moan about their pay and students worry they will end up…
