Education

Our experience in Education

The private education sector is changing. Independent private schools are being acquired by private equity funds and global brands are being formed. Adult education is dramatically increasing with the need for people to re-skill.

Private international schools are very profitable but require a high degree of commercial experience and skill to turn them into profitable businesses. Typically school management and governance consist of academics who lack the commercial skills required to run schools profitably. Therefore, most independent schools tend to be disorganised and barely profitable. Decisions are based purely on teaching needs without consideration of the economics and little interaction with alumni. Additionally, most teachers are foreign expats and they tend to make a lifestyle choice to move frequently from one country to another. Therefore, the search and hiring of teachers is a constant challenge, including getting legal documentation to live abroad.

About 50% of the students at an international school are foreign students, mainly due to their parent’s job assignment. Therefore, the students come and go from year to year, creating student churn levels that you would not usually see within domestic state run schools.

Finally, billing and collection of school fees is a very complex area with parents, divorced parents, and family members who sometimes help fund the students education.