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This book offers a first look at transnational education corporations, new firms that operate international schools. The quiet rise of transnational education corporations - or TECs - has implications for education systems around the globe, as corporate interests gain a greater stake in the way schools operate. The story of their ascendance links government policies in one corner of the world with profound effects in others.
In the past decade, TECs have burst onto the international schooling scene. Private firms, publicly listed firms, and private equity groups have transformed international education into an industry valued at over USD 30 billion. Nowhere has the impact been stronger and more sudden than in Asia. The top three international education firms with a presence in Asia run more than 20 schools in East and Southeast Asia with another six in India. Each educates tens of thousands of students around the globe and has an annual revenue of over USD 300 million. TECs offer a window onto the creation of new markets and the complex positions of governments in regulating social affairs. This book helps readers to understand who these firms are, what they do and how they have grown.
List of contents
1 Introduction.- 2 The Creation of an International Education Sector.- 3 The Origins of International School Groups.- 4 Government Policies and the Shifting Place of International Schools in the Education System.- 5 Economic Planning, Education Policy, and International Schools.- 6 The Business of International Education.- 7 International Education Goes Global: Transnational Education Corporations as Global Actors.- 8 Conclusion.
About the author
Dr. Hyejin Kim served as founding convener of the Global Studies Programme at the National University of Singapore, where she is currently a lecturer in Global Studies and Political Science. She holds degrees in Global Affairs, China Studies, and Cultural Anthropology. She has written five other books, three in English and two in Korean. International Ethnic Networks and Intra-Ethnic Conflict: Koreans in China (Palgrave, 2010) is based on her fieldwork in China with various Korean groups. She has also written a fieldwork-based work of fiction, Jia: A Novel of North Korea (Cleis, 2007), which has been discussed in The New York Review of Books and excerpted in a literary journal.
The research for How Global Capital Is Remaking International Education builds on her experience working in the international education sector. She served as the managing director of an international school in Singapore, and she also worked in China for one of the largest international school operators in the world. For the past nine years, she has been an adviser on Singapore and Swedish education policy to the Korea Institute of Curriculum and Evaluation, a government agency in Seoul.
Summary
This book offers a first look at transnational education corporations, new firms that operate international schools. The quiet rise of transnational education corporations – or TECs – has implications for education systems around the globe, as corporate interests gain a greater stake in the way schools operate. The story of their ascendance links government policies in one corner of the world with profound effects in others.
In the past decade, TECs have burst onto the international schooling scene. Private firms, publicly listed firms, and private equity groups have transformed international education into an industry valued at over USD 30 billion. Nowhere has the impact been stronger and more sudden than in Asia. The top three international education firms with a presence in Asia run more than 20 schools in East and Southeast Asia with another six in India. Each educates tens of thousands of students around the globe and has an annual revenue of over USD 300 million. TECs offer a window onto the creation of new markets and the complex positions of governments in regulating social affairs. This book helps readers to understand who these firms are, what they do and how they have grown.
