Examination of Witnesses (Questions 80-99)
BRITISH COUNCIL
25 MAY 2004
Q80 Chairman: One has the impression
that there is a fair number of European or EU students and also
Chinese students. How do those figures compare with young people
from these other countries?
Mr Kemp: China has overtaken them.
China has got 32,000 students in UK higher education and that
was in 2002-03. The other big group is the US. The official statistics
show about 16,000 or 17,000 US students but there are probably
over 30,000. I can explain why if I need to. Greece is the third
one with about 25,000 or 26,000. Total EU students are around
93,000.
Mr Butler: 100,000 if we include
the new states.
Mr Kemp: That is bad. I should
have included the accession states.
Chairman: A few weeks late! Thank you.
Judy?
Q81 Judy Mallaber: Do you have a breakdown
of those by male and female students or have you any idea in general
of that?
Mr Kemp: I can do that. I looked
at it for Thailand and in fact for Thailand and Singapore there
are more female than male students. I think Malaysia is about
50/50. Overall the total number is very approximately 50/50 male/female,
but South East Asia tend to have slightly more women students
in the UK.
Q82 Judy Mallaber: Are you able to identify
or send on to us any breakdown of that by country and also by
male and female students studying different subjects? That would
be very helpful to have it passed on.
Mr Kemp: I have done some work
on that already. One of the publications we have given you is
this one Vision 2020, and there is an analysis and projection
of gender split in that. It is in section 4. I can give you that.
Chairman: We have just received these
publications this morning so if there is any additional information
we require over and above that we will contact you in writing
just so we can get a feel for statistics.
Q83 Linda Perham: What do you see as
the principal selling points of UK education to potential students
and parents? Is it cost, reputation? Is it unique points that
we have got or are there some where we are just ahead of others?
Mr Kemp: We identified six key
factors in this study we did which should make any external country
an attractive destination and by far the biggest two for the UK,
just as you imply, are the reputation and quality. That is the
biggest. The second is the employability of the qualification.
This is perception in the main relative to the US and Australia
because they are our main competitors in this. So we looked at
those differing perceptions. Affordability comes quite a way down—third—for
South East Asia and then you have got things like cultural sensitivity,
security, lifestyle that are other factors, but the real dominant
ones are quality and the employability of the qualification.
Linda Perham: Thank you.
Q84 Judy Mallaber: Following on from
the fact that reputation and quality are the top criteria, does
that mean that students are more likely to be interested in only
certain high-prestige institutions or are they open to persuasion
that courses at other establishments are both appropriate and
useful in terms of the quality and employability criteria?
Mr Kemp: They are very much open.
They are much more flexible in that offering. Maybe Peter can
say a word on that because he knows Thailand where you have got
a whole range of institutions with different places in the league
table, whether it be on teaching or research.
Mr Upton: The evidence we have
in country is students look for course and quality of course,
so for instance they are looking at the universities that do that
better in engineering or science rather than just the university
itself. The points that Neil has made previously about reputation,
lifestyle and cultural sensitivity are equally important in Thailand.
Students from Thailand—and there are about 3,000 who come
to the UK each year—want to come to the UK because they
want to get a "good" education, they see it as economically
viable and they see the investment they have to put into that
education produces very short-term rewards so as soon as they
come back to Thailand they are able to get good jobs and start
to pay off their debts.
Q85 Judy Mallaber: How do they identify
which are the good courses? My two nearest universities to where
I live are Derby and Nottingham which are in the top league. How
would you identify which courses at those universities or any
others were the ones that were worth going to and how would those
universities have to sell it to them?
Mr Upton: There are normally four
stages students go through before making a selection. First of
all, they link to the British Council in terms of generic information
about study in the UK and there is a counselling service that
Neil and his team run that we manage in country, so there is general
information. Secondly, students do their research. It is a big
investment to come and study in the UK. It is an investment of
time, money and relationship so they do detailed research. They
search the web, they look at league tables, they make inquiries.
The third thing they do is they use word of mouth. They speak
to students who have been on courses, they talk to tutors. Finally,
there is a very strong agent network that exists that represents
certain universities in places like Bangkok and Shanghai and they
check those out. Students take a sophisticated approach to making
decisions.
Mr Butler: Just five years ago
students would be looking at us as a country and obviously would
be wanting to go to Oxbridge, LSE, and Imperial College because
they had heard of those. Now students are increasingly sophisticated,
as Peter said, and they will look at league tables, they will
look at individual universities to see whether a department has
a five or six-star rating and they will make their choices on
that basis.
Q86 Sir Robert Smith: So one important
lesson is how you treat the current students studying here as
an important part of how well you are going to recruit the next
generation.
Mr Upton: Of course, because the
reality is if students come back from the UK saying they had a
positive experience, a good-quality academic experience, and it
is a great place to live, that is something that carries a huge
weight. If they come back and they say that it is expensive, they
had a very bad experience, they did not like it, you will see
it on the back page of the Bangkok Post.
Q87 Mr Berry: Clearly from the UK's point
of view attracting students from overseas earns money and is good
for the intellectual life of the UK and so on but obviously there
is a potential criticism that the way the UK, Australia and the
States are landing in these countries promotes a "brain drain"
away from South East Asia. Is there any perception that your activities
and those of other establishments are promoting a brain drain
that might damage any of the ASEAN countries?
Mr Kemp: From the UK it is not
an issue because there is a very, very high percentage of return.
Australia definitely encourages skilled migration through study
overseas, so if you go to study in Australia you get extra points
on your potential migration, as happens in New Zealand and to
some extent in the US, but the US tend to cherry-pick, particularly
at the research level. If they are encouraging anyone positively
it is quality research students, that is why we have seen strong
continuing growth amongst Indian post-graduate research students
to the US, which is not something they have done traditionally
with the ASEAN nations. For the UK I do not think there is anything
that substantiates that claim but also these are students who
are paying for themselves. The vast majority of students from
ASEAN, over 90%, are self-funding, so they are making rational
decisions about future employment based on the labour market in
their country and the return there. So that is what is forming
their decision processes.
Mr Upton: I think also this is
a win/win situation. Certainly from our experience in Thailand,
where we have a prime minister who actually believes in study
overseas as a positive asset, that is bringing in a whole set
of new knowledge skills. We are also finding these young people
who have studied in the UK come back and act as ambassadors for
the UK and form lifelong relationships. Certainly our experience
from working with alumni from the UK in Thailand means that we
gain access and influence and partnerships in a way that the Americans
do not because we have a much better series of connections.
Q88 Mr Berry: I appreciate that. Clearly
the other way in which British educational institutions are involved
in South East Asia is through setting up branches—the Harrow
School in Bangkok, the University of Nottingham in Malaysia. When
UK institutions decide to adopt that approach are they competing
for the same pool of students or is it a completely different
exercise of providing education within the ASEAN country?
Mr Kemp: Our research indicates
that there is some overlap but it is quite minimal. There tend
to be two quite distinct and separate markets. One is study overseas
and the other is study in country. The main offering from the
UK are post-graduate taught masters programmes in country. A lot
of the students on those will be doing it part-time because they
are in employment or because of their lifestyle (they have got
families) so that is why they are pursuing those sorts of programmes.
It is interesting that there is becoming a slight shift in Malaysia
now where the middle income families can start to begin to
afford in-country foreign qualifications rather than travel, so
previously it was just restricted to the more wealthy but we are
seeing it come down now, so there could be some form of trade-off
that is beginning to happen. In the main, however, they are two
parallel and distinctly different groups with just some crossover.
Mr Upton: Certainly that is the
case in Thailand where we have seen the expansion in the schools
sector—Dulwich, Harrow, Shrewsbury—which have really
catered towards a group of middle-class Thai parents who want
to have access to a similar type of public school education and
then use that as a platform to go and study in the UK at under-graduate
level. We do not see there is any particular crossover of that
group. There is some minor, as Neil said, overlap.
Mr Butler: It is worth pointing
out that from our Vision 2020 research it is quite clear
that the number of students who want an international qualification
is going to grow enormously, maybe three or four times over the
next 15 years—and there will not be the capacity in the
host countries to deal with all these students and so the universities
and colleges are looking at that and have thought, "We will
set up campuses, franchise agreements, partnerships overseas."
I think we will see that growing over the next few years.
Q89 Mr Berry: Do you see the in-country
activities as contributing mainly economic benefits to the UK
or cultural benefits in the sense of the perception of the UK
as a nice, friendly country?
Mr Kemp: I think it is both. I
think we are in early days and it is evolving. Look at one example
which is the Malaysian Campus of Nottingham where they are trying
to set that up as equivalencies so that students from Nottingham
can go and study for a semester or a year or whatever in Malaysia
and vice versa. They are trying to encourage that flow. Courses
are of identical credit rating so you can transfer backwards and
forwards. I think that that is a pattern we are going to see evolving.
We really are in early days in all this global delivery and how
it is going to pan out in terms of credit transfers and mobility.
Q90 Mr Berry: Finally, how do we compare
in terms of in-country activity in South East Asia in comparison
for example with the States or Australia?
Mr Kemp: It is the most competitive.
Q91 Mr Berry: Are we ahead of the game
or behind the stakes?
Mr Kemp: I would say that we are
behind. The Australians definitely took from us from about 1994.
They really upped the level of investment in marketing and targeting
South East Asia and that carried on until about 2000, but we launched
this so-called Prime Minister's Initiative to recruit more international
students to the UK and that has begun to bite from about 2001-02
and we have seen a definite increase in Singapore and Malaysia,
which are the two places where we suffered the most damage. Fortunately,
our team in Thailand has done extremely well.
Mr Upton: It is a highly competitive
environment where, as you know just from the evidence, a large
number of students who want to study overseas bring with them
a huge amount of money, influence and long-term relationship,
so what we see in Thailand, for example, is a very competitive
situation with colleagues from Australia and the States marketing
very aggressively and very successfully for their courses in a
very particular way. We are seeing colleagues from France and
Germany looking at niche provision. Then there is the EU also
playing this area in terms of representing EU Member States for
student recruitment. Then we have very particular groups from
America. The reality is we have been successful for four reasons.
Firstly, we have unified around our own brand called the Prime
Minister's Initiative. Secondly, we have consolidated our place
in the market by having a very focused approach about quality
and information. Thirdly, we have a good product in UK higher
education. Finally, because we are trying to do a completely joined-up
approach with our colleagues in the Embassy, our colleagues back
here, colleagues like yourself and the FCO, it actually gives
us leverage. However, we are at risk and this remains competitive.
We are at risk if we do not continue to invest in the marketing
and promotion of this because then I will guarantee you we will
lose market share.
Q92 Richard Burden: Can we just look
at the subjects that tertiary students are really attracted to,
first of all, in terms of coming over here. Are we essentially
talking about MBAs and so on?
Mr Kemp: The split is about 50/50
between post-graduate and under-graduate. Management, business,
finance and IT-related courses do tend to dominate the subjects.
They are about 50 or 55% of the total demand but from the other
45% we do still have quite a large attraction in engineering,
electronics, et cetera. There are the niche areas that Peter mentioned
earlier. For example, Singapore wants to grow the life sciences
and they have been investing particularly at post-graduate level
to encourage Singaporeans to work in life sciences. Law is obviously
very important here because the Malaysian and Singaporean systems
have a commonalty with English law.
Mr Butler: I do actually have
the figures here for 2002-03 for Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand,
and just to back up what Neil was saying, for Malaysia for instance,
electronic and electrical engineering is by far the most popular
subject, followed by business studies, mechanical engineering,
computer science and then clinical medicine. For Singapore it
is business science, business studies, electronic and electrical
engineering, law and economics. For Thailand it is business studies,
management studies, marketing, economics, and then electronic
and electrical engineering.
Chairman: Can you give us that, that
would be helpful?
Q93 Richard Burden: Apart from life sciences
which is growing particularly in Singapore—and we have probably
picked up where that might be coming from—are there any
discernable trends in any of those examples you were giving there
that are particularly up and down?
Mr Kemp: I looked back over the
last five or six years in trying to project ahead and it has been
almost stable. The breakdown by subject area and level has been
almost stable for the last five or six years. Universities and
colleges here want to know where is going to be the new markets
and yet I cannot detect any trend at the moment. I have looked
at the Australian and US numbers as well and they are similar.
It is almost flat in terms of projections.
Q94 Richard Burden: So there is nothing
that you can identify, particularly for those areas that are in
the 45% rather than the 55%, that they can be doing that they
are not?
Mr Kemp: Not at the moment. All
I could predict is that with the growth of the general management
MBA that is going to differentiate and get more specialised within
it. You are going to have people who are going to look at specific
areas of finance or specific areas of MR-related but that is all
I can say. I would not like to go firm on anything.
Q95 Linda Perham: In some of your responses
to Mr Berry you were talking about branches set up in other countries.
I think you were talking about Dulwich, Harrow and Shrewsbury
as the schools which have opened offshoots in the countries, and
Nottingham as well in Malaysia. Are there particular advantages
or disadvantages of setting up branch institutions outside the
UK and are there any specifically in relation to the three countries
we have visited? Obviously there is a cost involved if you are
going to set up in a different country, but what are the pros
and cons?
Mr Kemp: You have got the Thai
experience which is a good one.
Mr Upton: In terms of Thailand
where we have seen an expansion of private education, these are
franchised arrangements. The advantages are that it provides a
comparatively low-cost alternative that is close to home. It maintains
a quality approach. It provides an opportunity for young people
to have an experience of a UK education and there is a range of
positive pluses around that. The key concerns that normally arise
are whether the quality is maintained, whether it can be sustained,
what examination qualifications there are, what the nature of
the relationship is between the franchisee, for example Shrewsbury,
and the home college or home school back in the UK. Those are
broad and generic issues to do with any franchised operation about
value for money, quality, expectations and delivery.
Q96 Linda Perham: Would people be recruited
locally, particularly teachers, or would the home organisations
send out people from the UK generally?
Mr Upton: There is a variety of
models. Essentially what would happen in the private schools there
would be local, native teachers—so English teachers who
happen to be in Thailand or recruited from Australia or from England
to teach in those schools. There is not a transfer of staff, for
example from Shrewsbury to Shrewsbury School in Thailand.
Mr Butler: At the university level
for instance I think Nottingham certainly for the first year—and
they are just about to open a campus in China—are considering
sending Nottingham staff to China while they are training staff
locally.
Q97 Linda Perham: When you say they are
franchises presumably the host home organisation thinks they are
going to make money out of it?
Mr Kemp: Yes.
Q98 Linda Perham: If they did not they
would not bother.
Mr Kemp: Absolutely, these are
all commercial operations that are quite serious. At the beginning
there you were making that reference to the initial investment
cost. It is a high cost for setting up, so you are looking for
an enterprise with whom you can co-operate internationally overseas
to put up some of the capital, just as we are seeing in Singapore
(which you might want to come on to) with their new approach to
growing this business. Looking specifically at the independent
schools—the Shrewsburys et cetera—they have a constraint
to the size and they do not want a too large international population
to put them out of kilter with the total picture of students,
so moving overseas is the best option. As we see with Australia,
Australia is 30 or 40% the size of the UK and it knows it cannot
absorb that many more international students in the way it is
configured so the best way is to deliver outside Australia, and
they are very aggressive now in this area, and growing it because
they have got the constraints. The one that really worries me
is the US because they have not been active in this global delivery
in any significant way, yet on their campuses they are developing
a whole series of programmes that can just as easily be delivered
internationally. You have got three or four very large private
enterprise universities growing in the United States. You might
have come across the University of Phoenix. Silvan Learning has
just gone into partnership in Liverpool. The Caplan Corporation
is just about to open up here as well. The University of Phoenix
has 200,000 students. These are the groups that worry me because
it is possible they are going to take the expertise they have
been developing in the US and are going pass it down a whole series
of countries.
Q99 Chairman: On this question of education
one of the litmus tests must surely be what do ex-pats do with
their kids? Do they send them to these places or do they send
them back to London for the "real McCoy"?
Mr Kemp: To local British schools.
I lived in Indonesia and we were not allowed to send them to the
Indonesian schools.
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