Examination of Witnesses (Questions 76-79)
BRITISH COUNCIL
25 MAY 2004
Q76 Chairman: Mr Kemp, you are in the
middle so that seems as good a reason as any for you to introduce
yourself and your colleagues.
Mr Kemp: My name is Neil Kemp.
I am Director of the Education UK Marketing Division of the British
Council and I have overall responsibility for our work in education
and training exports. I am also Deputy Director of Education and
Training so I oversee the global education and training operation
as well. I should say my interest in ASEAN is I have worked for
eight years in Indonesia.
Mr Butler: My name is Nick Butler
and I am the Education Exports Manager within our education and
training group within the British Council. I am also responsible
for our relations with UKTI on the education exports agenda and
with the DfES international trade team.
Mr Upton: I am Peter Upton, formerly
Director of the Education and Training Group responsible for the
British Council's education and training programmes. I am now
the country Director for Thailand and I saw some of your colleagues
there.
Q77 Chairman: Thank you very much for
that. I think you appreciate that we have been looking at, amongst
other things, trade relations with ASEAN countries and certainly
Thailand and Malaysia and Singapore. It was clear to us that the
role of the British Council was quite a significant one. We were
conscious, too, that British educational establishments and institutions
are quite active in selling their goods and services there. Perhaps
you could tell us how many establishments—schools, universities
and the like—are operating in South East Asia?
Mr Kemp: That is a difficult one
to actually know the number. We have got 180 higher education
institutions in the UK, and probably 100 of them are active internationally
and the majority of those would be active in the ASEAN area generally
because it is the most important market at the moment. Okay, others
are growing but ASEAN has been for the last 10 or 15 years the
most important market.
Q78 Chairman: Do you have any figures
about the number of foreign students from the numbers within the
foreign student body that come from South East Asia?
Mr Kemp: We have got it broken
down. There is a total at the moment in HE of about 20,000 and
that is across post-graduate research, post-graduate taught programmes
and under-graduate programmes. There are probably over 30,000
students on UK higher education programmes delivered in country
so that is another interesting area for development. The FE sector
numbers are a bit lower. There are only 1,000 or so in UK further
education institutions and then there is a small number in English
language teaching institutions, mainly from Thailand, and I am
sure Peter can say something about that.
Q79 Chairman: So which countries would
be the main ASEAN contributors to these figures?
Mr Kemp: Malaysia far and above
with Singapore second. We are looking at about 10,000-plus in
higher education from Malaysia, about 4,000-plus from Singapore,
and about 3,000 from Thailand, and then Indonesia on about 1,000.
I am focusing on higher education because the others are smaller
numbers.
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