BEIJING — The Web site for a private school in Changzhou, a city west of Shanghai, 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 Chengzhou, Oxford International College — with no connection to the British university — is tapping into a growing market of upwardly mobile Chinese willing to pay as much as 260,000 renminbi, or about $42,000, a year for a Western-style education and a possible ticket to a 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,” said Frank Lu, the general manager of Oxford International Colleges of China. “The expat community is not enough to justify a school.”
“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 programs tailored to British A-levels or the U.S. Advanced Placement tests.
All promise to provide the proficiency in English needed to attend a foreign university.
In a sign of the eagerness to get the school up and running in Changzhou, classes have already started, even though the campus — complete with an artificial lake and boathouse — will be under construction until September.
The international aura is important in persuading ambitious Chinese parents to pay steep tuition fees. Many schools feature non-Chinese children on their Web sites 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 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 Ministry of Education.
Established British private 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 the Maple Leaf campus in Chongqing for 50,000 renminbi 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.”
Many wealthy Chinese parents, with single children because of the country’s one-child policy see the schools as a way to get a foreign-style education while keeping the children close to home.
“Later, when she goes overseas to college, we will have few chances to see her,” said Zhuang Zhengyi, the head of the parents association for Oxford International in Changzhou, where his daughter is in Grade 10. “We treasure the time we have with her now.”
The number of international schools registered in mainland China has soared in the past 12 years, to 338 from 22, said Nicholas Brummitt, managing director of International School Consultancy, based in Britain. Enrollment has risen 25 times in the same period, to 184,073 students.
Over all, 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.
Somewhat fewer than half of the international schools in China are in cities like Changzhou, rather than the main expatriate centers of Beijing, Shanghai or Guangdong Province, a reflection of the increasing incomes of the Chinese middle class, who are spread across the country, and their aspirations.
Parents who can afford the international schools say it is a passport to a better life for their children, despite much higher costs. The schools offer the chance for a university education overseas, avoiding the pressure cooker that is the national college entrance exam, which was taken by about nine million Chinese students last June.
There are good state schools in every city, but their teaching is geared entirely toward 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, west of Shanghai, 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 is not the case in many other cities, where growth in private education, including bilingual schools, is exploding.
For newly wealthy Chinese parents, the international schools offer an alternative to the mainland’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 Compass Education, based in Tianjin, or Dipont Education, a firm founded in Australia, offer joint-venture international sections within established public schools, with an average tuition fee of as much as 100,000 renminbi a year.
“For Chinese parents it’s a totally different idea,” said Gavin Newton-Tanzer, a Compass board member. “Their children study only through memorizing 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.”
Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/15/business/global/international-schools-in-china-point-students-to-the-west.html?partner=rss&emc=rss