More than half of schools (58%) are in Asia, with the remainder spread across the Americas (15%), Europe (14%), Africa (12%), and Oceania (2%).

While China still leads in terms of number of schools, growth is flattening. By contrast, the number of schools grew by +2% in India and +7% in UAE. The ISC report singles out UAE, Indonesia, and Kazakhstan as high-growth markets, noting that the UAE leads in the number of K-12 international schools it has planned for the future (36). There are currently waiting lists for multiple grade levels in UAE.

Other pertinent statistics are that there are +34% more accredited schools and +17% more that offer bilingual education.

Structural shift

ISC says that growth in international schools is now driven by local demand. This is a shift – previously it had been a country’s expatriate community that created demand for these schools. The shift has stimulated the rise in schools offering bilingual provision and curricula reflecting “national requirements, local language, and cultural context.” Over a third of international schools now offer bilingual instruction and 78% follow a hybrid model that blends local needs with global outcomes.

ISC says: “International schools are no longer positioned at the margins of national education systems they are increasingly integrated within them.”

As for new entrants into the segment, ISC says the most successful are those “who can operate locally and expand globally.”

For additional background, please see:

• “International schools segment registers impressive five-year growth numbers”
• “���Ϲ��� Podcast: Shifting horizons: Global trends in international secondary education”
• “A big-picture view of international student mobility for secondary studies”
• “International schools an increasingly important recruitment channel for higher education”

The post Continuing expansion of K-12 international school sector driven more by growing local demand appeared first on ���Ϲ��� Monitor - Market intelligence for international student recruitment.

As we see in the chart below, however, while short-term enrolments (programmes of four months or less) increased by 153 students year-over-year, long-term numbers (enrolments of one semester or more) took a more serious dip and fell by more than 1,000 students. Given the relative spend of long-term and short-term students, that -3.5% decrease in long-term enrolments is the more significant change this year.

Where do students come from?

There is some variety in terms of sending markets for long-term students as opposed to short-term enrolments. When it comes to the former, China remains far and away the biggest sender, accounting for nearly a third of all long-term students – and sending more than three times the next-largest source market (Germany) in 2024/25. It would not be overstating the case to say that as China goes, so goes the overall enrolment picture for CAPS-I members. The decline in Chinese numbers from their pre-COVID high in 2018/19 closely reflects the overall decrease in enrolments reports by CAPS-I school boards.

We see a different mix of sending markets for short-term studies. China and Germany remain near the top of the table (5th and 4th, respectively) but after Japan, Colombia, and Spain.

CAPS-I notes a “significant decrease” in the numbers of short-term students from China, South Korea, and Thailand, and also for Mexico and Hong Kong, neither of which remains among the top ten sending markets this year.

For additional background, please see:

• “International schools segment registers impressive five-year growth numbers“
• “���Ϲ��� Podcast: Shifting horizons: Global trends in international secondary education“
• “A big-picture view of international student mobility for secondary studies“
• “International enrolment in Canadian K-12 recovered to more than 80% of pre-pandemic levels in 2022/23“

The post Foreign enrolment in Canadian K-12 held steady in 2024/25 appeared first on ���Ϲ��� Monitor - Market intelligence for international student recruitment.

That growth is distributed fairly evenly across the key global regions for international K-12 with Western Asia and Southeast Asia edging ahead in terms of overall growth since 2020 (each recorded overall growth of 11% over that five-year period).

ISC adds the following observations for selected growth markets for international K-12 schools.

• “Saudi Arabia [333 Schools: 3% growth in 5 years]: A steadily growing education sector driven by Vision 2030 and rising local demand – yet schools must navigate localisation pressures amid a global teacher shortage.”
• “Spain [423 Schools: 10% growth in 5 years]: Schools across Madrid, Valencia, and the Costa del Sol are expanding their facilities and programmes, often blending national and international curricula to widen students’ future pathways.”
• “Vietnam [359 Schools: 24% growth in 5 years]: Premium-fee schools in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi are facing enrolment pressures, but those with strong reputations and established track records continue to perform competitively.”
• “Brazil [438 Schools: 32% growth in 5 years]: Investments in modern infrastructure, student wellbeing, and academic excellence is positioning Brazil’s international schools market as vibrant and future-ready on the global stage.”

In terms of curricula, the International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma Programme is the most widely taught in international K-12, followed by Cambridge, and then British, and American curriculum.

For additional background, please see:

• “International school openings, enrolments, and revenues continue to expand“
• “A big-picture view of international student mobility for secondary studies“
• “���Ϲ��� Podcast: Shifting horizons: Global trends in international secondary education“

The post International schools segment registers impressive five-year growth numbers appeared first on ���Ϲ��� Monitor - Market intelligence for international student recruitment.

This month’s episode also features a discussion with expert practitioners in the secondary school sector. Martijn and Craig are joined by special guests Elizabeth Drake, Director of US Partnerships with , and Bethan Hudson, Executive Director Specialist Services with . The group explores the international secondary student market –��examining the key decision-making factors, emerging destinations, and the higher education opportunities for both the students themselves and the institutions looking to recruit them.

We conclude with a closer look at Mexico as the latest stop for our “Keys to the Market” segment.

You can listen right now in the player below, and we encourage you to subscribe via your favourite podcast app in order to receive future episodes automatically.

For additional background, please see:

• “���Ϲ��� Podcast: A whole new world: International student recruitment in 2025”
• “Student mobility in MENA boosted by foreign partnerships and branch campuses“
• “The Netherlands: Debate around student recruitment and retention continues amid foreign enrolment decline“
• “International student recruitment in Mexico: Demand for language study still leading the way“

The post ���Ϲ��� Podcast: Shifting horizons: Global trends in international secondary education appeared first on ���Ϲ��� Monitor - Market intelligence for international student recruitment.

The online learning segment for K-12 is also growing quickly, with several established and new entrants in the space serving a growing student population. Our focus today, however, is on internationally mobile K-12 students who travel abroad to pursue their studies. There are many well-established destinations for such students in Europe and elsewhere, but we will limit our scope today to K-12 student enrolments in the so-called Big Four study destinations: the United States, Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom.

Those destinations collectively account for hundreds of thousands of international K-12 students. But the sector’s significance goes beyond that: secondary schools of all types are increasingly seen as an essential recruitment channel for universities and colleges as well.

For post-secondary institutions across the Big Four destinations, international secondary school graduates:

• Are receiving instruction in English and according to a curriculum suited for smooth entry into degree studies in their host country.

• Have gained familiarity with the culture in their host country and understand what it takes to get into a good university in their host country. In fact, many have chosen to go abroad for K-12 education precisely for a better chance of being admitted to a prestigious foreign university in the same country where they are enrolled in school.

• Are living in the host country – making recruitment more affordable and less complicated than recruiting overseas. They graduate with the same credentials as domestic students do, and so their applications are easier to evaluate.

• Come from some of the top target countries for colleges and universities working towards greater diversification (e.g., China, South Korea, and Vietnam).

In the following sections, we’ll look at the dynamics of the K-12 sectors in Australia, Canada, the UK, and US. Across those destinations, K-12 numbers continue to recover following the pandemic. But that recovery is tempered by global market factors including expanding intra-regional mobility in Asia, tougher immigration rules in leading host countries, the growing popularity of alternative destinations outside the Big Four, and the expansion of international K-12 schools around the world.

Australia

International students in Australian schools accounted for just under 2% (19,095) of the total number of foreign students in Australian onshore education in 2024. This is a decrease of 23% since 2019. Of international secondary students, just over a quarter are enrolled in Australian independent (private) schools, mostly at the secondary level (78%). The independent subsector has taken than government-funded schools.

In both government and independent schools, , accounting for 30% of enrolments in 2023. Four other countries composed another 40% of the total: Vietnam, Hong Kong, South Korea, and Germany.

As you can see in the following chart, the schools sector and the non-award sector have had the most challenging time recovering enrolments since the pandemic. English-language teaching (ELICOS) is also off its pre-pandemic level of business, and it was the only sector to experience a decline between 2023 and 2024.

Along with the dent the prolonged Australian pandemic border closure put into educators’ ability to recruit overseas, ’ Heidi Reid notes that the increasing number of K-12 international schools around the world is a major issue for Australian onshore K-12 schools’ foreign enrolments:

“For the Australian school sector, [the expansion of international schools] simply decreases the pool. As students can study in English in their home country with an international curriculum and native-speaking teachers, they no longer need to go overseas to find this opportunity. This means that Australian schools that will do well will be the ones that provide a uniquely Australian or quality offering and not just a high school education in English.”

Ms Reid also notes that international schools in other countries – which are predominantly British – are not yet a major pipeline into Australian universities because the parents of students are aiming for their children to attend Ivy League or Oxbridge schools.

She recommends that Australian high schools provide more multilingual options, offer the International Baccalaureate (IB) curriculum more, and forge more partnerships with international schools around the world.

Canada

In Canada, according to the (CAPS-I) there were 29,580 fee-paying long-term students on study permits for public high schools in 2023/24, and another 4,500 were enrolled for short programmes of less than 4 months (for which students do not need a study permit). This represented about a 2% increase over the previous year.

Growth slowed for students in long-term programmes – those enrolments had grown by 15% in 2022/23. Overall, enrolments in both long and short-term programmes are about 80% of what they were pre-pandemic.

The top five markets are:

• China (+35% year-over-year)
• Germany (-20%)
• South Korea (-17%)
• Japan (+8%)
• Brazil (+20%)

Japan’s increase is notable, as long-term enrolments are now at their highest level in the past decade of data collection. Japan is also the largest source of short-term enrolments.

Several other markets in the Top 10 declined: Italy (-26%), Spain (-17%), and Hong Kong (-19%).

In Canada, major challenges for the sector include rising immigration levels (which are placing greater demands on the domestic education system) and less homestay accommodation than before the pandemic. reports:

“With the additional demand on schools due to the influx of newcomers, there are increasingly less spaces available to international students. This has particularly impacted schools located in larger urban areas.”

Regarding homestays, the pandemic saw Canadian families repurpose their homes to accommodate for offices and returning older children, and lack of homestays remains an issue.

In addition, Global Affairs notes that Canadian schools don’t engage enough with Canadian offshore schools, of which there are 126 in over 20 countries: “These institutions abroad could be valuable partners for student exchanges and short-term enrolments.”

United Kingdom

In the UK, private K-12 schools are anticipating a drop in international student numbers due to the government’s recent decision to make students pay a 20% value-added tax (VAT) on fees and to funnel that money into state schools. The (ISC) says there was a 2.7% decline in new students in 2024 compared to 2023, and notes that “the spectre of VAT is looming large in parents’ minds.” On top of that, inflation has been a compounding issue for private schools.

A total of 62,800 non-British students were enrolled in ISC schools in 2024, accounting for 11% of all students in those schools. Close to 27,000 have parents who live overseas – and tend to be “boarders” as a result at the secondary level – and 36,500 have at least one parent with them in the UK. Over 2,000 Ukrainian students are in ISC schools, and 37% of them are in the UK without their parents.

The top source of students whose parents are overseas is China (5,825, and an increase of nearly a quarter after three years of decline), while the top two regions for students whose parents are with them are Europe and the US. ISC notes as well that:

“The number of pupils from both Hong Kong and Mainland China in this [second] category continues to grow. Hong Kong pupil numbers have increased 10% to 2,602 and pupil numbers from China have increased 13% to 4,551.”

British ISC schools may be pressured at home, but many of them find relief in the large numbers of international students they enrol in their offshore campuses. More than 93,250 students are enrolled in 129 campuses overseas, up from 71,660 in 2023.

United States

There were 54,560 international K-12 students enrolled in the US in 2023, and most students enrolled in a full academic school year are on F-1 Visas. China is the top market (13,290 in 2023 versus 12,815 in 2022), followed by Korea (3,315 and down from 3,580 in 2022), Spain (3,095 and down slightly from 3,140 in 2022), Vietnam (3,135 and up from 2,880 in 2022), and Mexico (2,805 and stable).

Responding to the Institute of International Education’s (IIE) , 45% of undergraduate recruiters said they were prioritising recruitment of international students at US high schools. Again, this underlines the importance of the secondary school sector for higher education recruiters in the Big Four.

For additional background, please see:

• Attend , a specialist event aimed at recruiting students of secondary education age from around the world.
• “International schools an increasingly important recruitment channel for higher education”

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The implications for universities are huge. ISC notes:

“Data analysis from ISC Research indicates that approximately 580,000 students will have exited English medium international schools during the summer of 2024. With prior research indicating that over 90% of these students are expected to enter universities around the world, international schools are an invaluable source of prospective undergraduates for higher education institutions.”

Where are the schools?

More than half of international schools are in Asia.

Regional nuances

ISC presents highlights on where students from four important sending markets tend to go after completing studies at an international school:

• In China (1,103 schools enrolling close to 400,300 students), the top choice is the UK, and demand is falling somewhat for the US due to safety concerns or geo-political tensions.

• In Ghana (114 schools enrolling over 37,000 students), students tend to prefer the UK, US, and Canada, but are increasingly interested in European destinations because of their lower cost and simpler visa processes.

• In India (913 schools, close to 420,000 students), ISC notes a growing trend of staying in-country after studies because of an increase in foreign-affiliated universities and because students are worried about global economic instability. This trend is important given the hundreds of thousands of Indian students abroad today. In fact, over a million Indian students were hosted by just six countries in 2023: Canada (420K+), US (268K+), UK (173K+), Australia (126K+), and Germany (42K+). A dip from this market (which Canada is already experiencing) would be exceptionally difficult for many universities.

• In Saudi Arabia (332 schools, over 366,000 students), students are most interested in degree studies in the US, which is enabled by bilateral agreements between the US and Saudi Arabia. That said, Saudi Arabian enrolments in US colleges have declined every year since 2016. In 2022/23, the most recent year for which IIE Open Doors data are available, it was the only top 10 market to decline for the US (-12%).

The role of the college counsellor

An important section in the ISC report details the role of the college counsellor at international schools. That position is “integral to the higher education application process for students,” says ISC, and so foreign recruiters would do well to establish a good connection with the college counsellor at any of the international schools they are interested in.

ISC elaborates:

“In international schools, where students apply to universities in multiple countries, each with their own application system and requirements, college counsellors are invaluable in navigating these complexities, ensuring students are well prepared for success.

Most international schools and their college counsellors promote ‘best fit’ selection; they carefully match students’ study and pathway goals to an institution’s ethos, course offer, learning model, extracurricular opportunities, location, and study outcomes.”

The report includes a case study illustrating the responsibilities of Jinane Helou, a university counsellor at ABA Oman International School. Ms Helou’s responsibilities “go beyond academic guidance, focusing on holistic development, personalised support, and fostering strong relationships with universities.” The following excerpt provides an example of how ABA Oman interacts with universities:

“Each year universities are welcomed to ABA Oman to attend university fairs exposing students to a wide range of global higher education institutions. ABA Oman also has a partnership with the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Switzerland, which sets aside places for ABA Oman students each academic year. Such partnerships not only enhance the school’s reputation but also provide students with a smoother transition to university life.”

Curricula and exams

One or more of the following curricula are offered at most international schools.

The following chart indicates the qualifications preferred by students at international schools. The A/ International A levels are naturally attractive to student with their hearts set on study in the UK

For more information, please see:

• “What is behind the dramatic expansion of the international schools sector?”

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While private school services had previously been exempt from the VAT, Chancellor Reeves has confirmed that –��at which point “all education services and vocational training supplied by a private school, or a connected person, for a charge will be subject to VAT at the standard rate of 20%”. The same tax provision will now apply to all boarding services as well. Further, all school fees paid on or after 29 July 2024 for school terms beginning 1 January 2025 or after will now be subject to the tax.

The change had been tipped in the Labour Party manifesto leading up the July 2024 general election in the UK, and the sector has been pushing back on the idea for months, especially as it became clear last month that the new UK government would introduce the VAT changes months earlier than first expected.

Speaking late in July, Independent Schools Council (ISC) Chief Executive Julie Robinson said, “Any parent or school following the debate over VAT is likely to have been planning for September 2025…Families will have made choices about education months before an election was called; they cannot adequately plan for their children’s futures based on speculation, uncertainty and constantly shifting dates.”

As it became clear that the new VAT policy would come into effect for January 2025, rather than September 2025, Ms Robinson added, “The change also means the policy would take effect one academic year earlier and parents would have missed the opportunity to apply for a state school place in the normal cycle.”

“Any parent who might now need to move their child faces the prospect of an in-year admission, which is more difficult to arrange and will be detrimental to their child’s education.”

After the VAT rule change was confirmed on 29 July, ISC’s Head of Media and Communications Sarah Cunnane commented that, “We have significant concerns about what this policy will mean for our schools and how many will close. School closures are inevitable, sadly, and ultimately that is going to affect the families who’ve chosen to use them and is going to disrupt thousands of children’s education.”

In October 2023, the UK Boarding Schools’ Association published the results of a survey of Chinese parents. The 2023 edition of the the BSA’s annual parent survey collected responses from 1,000 parents of current or prospective students. And it found that the addition of VAT to school fees would impact the decision making of 60% of the responding parents, with 9% saying that the VAT would cause them to choose another country for their student’s education.

For additional background, please see:

• “International school openings, enrolments, and revenues continue to expand“
• “International enrolment in Canadian K-12 recovered to more than 80% of pre-pandemic levels in 2022/23“
• “British independent K-12 schools expanding overseas campuses“

The post UK confirms that value-added tax will now apply to private school fees appeared first on ���Ϲ��� Monitor - Market intelligence for international student recruitment.

English-language training sector posts big gains

In total, 59,305 students were enrolled across all sectors from January-August 2023, about half of whom were attending university (27,535, up 15% on 2022). The second largest subsector was schools, up 114% to 12,660, followed by the English-language training sector, which posted massive growth of 347% for a total of 7,000 students.

The strengthening performance of the ELT sector is a positive indicator of future trends for universities and other tertiary-level educators, as many ELT graduates go on to enrol in higher education having achieved a stronger command of the English language.

Numbers were also up by 32% to 6,560 for Te Pūkenga, a centralised establishment specialising in skills and technology training that is in the process of being “disestablished.” It will be replaced with eight to 10 institutions with their own autonomy in the next several months with an aim of better serving the needs of local communities.

Private Training Establishments (PTEs) recorded growth of 13% to 5,670.

Recovery still underway but the trend is positive

Overall, numbers are still down significantly from 2019 when the total foreign enrolment in the country was 115,705, but the trajectory is positive and New Zealand educators are aiming to base their recovery on recruiting from a more diverse mix of student source markets.

Minister Simmonds said:

“Over 59,000 enrolments, in just eight months, confirms that international students continue to find New Zealand an attractive education destination. And for the university sector with 27,535 students enrolled, where a proportion of learners may study for a number of years, there is a solid base of students from which to grow. It is a Government priority to diversify our recruitment efforts for international students with the aim of reaching a broader spectrum of countries.”

Currently, China contributes 36% of enrolments, followed by India (10%), Japan (10%), South Korea (5%), and Thailand (4%).

New Zealand’s position strengthens amid weakening demand for Australia, Canada, and UK

The recovery of New Zealand’s international education sector may be bolstered by policy changes in leading competitor countries Australia, Canada, and UK. New policies in those countries are already causing many international students to reassess their study plans. Nearly half of 2,500 prospective students in 67 countries surveyed by IDP in January 2024 are reconsidering or unsure of their plans to study in the UK, and significant proportions are also hesitating to go to Australia (47%) and Canada (43%).

For additional background, please see:

• “New Zealand: Foreign enrolments climbed steadily through 2023 but full recovery will take years”

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