Increasing demand and the growing popularity of international education has attracted a number of prestigious international schools to open campuses in Shanghai. However, local authorities have mandated that international schools wishing to open branches in China have to cooperate with local public schools or other domestic education agencies. Experts say that these restrictions might limit the influence of international schools in pushing forward domestic education reform.

Sports time at Wellington College International School Photo: Courtesy of Wellington College International School

When the renowned old-guard British school Wellington College opened a campus in Shanghai in August this year for pupils aged 2 to 15, it made a splash, with headlines calling it the most expensive international school in the city.

Charging up to 259,000 yuan ($42,285) a year, it is definitely not a cheap choice. But the high fees didn't scare parents away. During its first year of operation, Wellington recruited over 300 pupils.

Since the establishment of the city's first international school, Yew Chung International School of Shanghai, in 1993, the vast potential of the local education market has attracted a number of international schools. Right on the heels of Wellington, another prestigious school from the UK, Harrow, has a campus under construction in Shanghai, scheduled to open next year in Pudong. Regulations stipulate that these independently foreign-run schools can only admit overseas passport holders and students from China's Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan.

Quite a few other foreign schools have chosen to make their mark in Shanghai by cooperating with local schools, like Qibao Dwight High School, a cooperation between Qibao High School, a city public school, and Dwight School, a private school from the US, which opened its first semester of classes in September of this year.

The establishment of this first Sino-US high school closely followed the opening of New York University (NYU) Shanghai last year, the city's first cooperatively-run school. These two schools are open to both Chinese nationals and foreigners.

While both types of schools do present more choices for students in Shanghai, education experts suggest that with too many restrictions at present, they will probably have only a very limited impact on the city's overall education system.

Boosting competitiveness

Official statistics indicate that 208,300 overseas passport holders lived in Shanghai 2010, second in the country, and 20.4 percent of the nation's total.

Wu Zijian, headmaster of the YK Pao School, a privately-run bilingual school in Shanghai, said that the need to educate the children of foreign executives who moved to Shanghai for work led to a wave of international school openings. "These people could have chosen to leave their children in their home countries for studies. But because of convenience and cost, most of them eventually chose international schools in Shanghai."

Wu was quoted by Xinmin Evening News as saying that this trend would continue at least until 2020 as Shanghai's foreign population would continue to grow quickly during that period.

Discussing his reasons for coming to Shanghai, David Cook, the founding headmaster of Wellington International College Shanghai, said that parents are naturally eager to give their kids the best. "We have come here aiming to bring the essence of Wellington College in the UK. Shanghai gives us a unique opportunity to do this because the parent profiles - they are the sort of people who give us the opportunity to do many of the things that we do at Wellington in the UK," he told the Global Times.

Brantley Turner, vice principal of Qibao Dwight High School, said that in addition to its large foreign population and parents' passion for education, Shanghai students' excellent performance on the PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) is another factor attracting educational institutes here from around the world.

Also important, she said, is the fact that compared with other parts of China, the city is definitely easier to understand for foreigners who want to start up something in the country. "You'll feel it's easier to get things done in Shanghai. It's clearer in Shanghai how to do things," she told the Global Times.

Despite the presence of a number of international schools in Shangahi, David Cook said Wellington is injecting greater competition into the market. "This is going to be good for all of us whether it's competition on the sports field or in the classrooms over the IGCSE (International General Certificate of Secondary Education) grades."

He added that he was pleased to see that Harrow is coming soon. "I'm looking forward to the day when Wellington can play Harrow just as they do in the UK."

Raising Shanghai's game

But moving to Shanghai is sometimes not just a school's decision. For Wellington, the timing and location of its appearance in China were also dependent on its partnership with Lujiazui Group, who was also a local partner for NYU Shanghai.

Cook said that the group was the key relationship in Wellington's decision to come to China, their first and only school abroad. "The group approached the Chinese side and Wellington UK. We saw China as the opportunity to establish the Wellington name abroad."

Wang Xiaoke, director of the Pudong Education Bureau, told local media that the area was keen on bringing in more quality international schools to better serve foreigners working and living in Pudong. More than 13,000 overseas students spent their 2012-2013 school year in Pudong, a year-on-year increase of more than 2,000. The figure accounted for one-third of the total number of foreign students in Shanghai. "We are keen on bringing in international schools to share their advanced experiences and help improve the overall quality of education in Pudong," said Wang.

There have been attempts made in this regard. For instance, the Wellington Academy Programme, which operates in the evenings on the weekends and is open to Chinese nationals, has established partnership with local schools, said Cook. But the fact that these international schools are only allowed to recruit overseas students restricts their ability to influence the larger market for education in Shanghai.

Going local

On the other hand, cooperatively-run schools, which are open to Chinese nationals, stand a better chance of having an impact on local education. Qibao Dwight's new student body is primarily local Chinese students.

"For Dwight, we never looked at starting an international school. We came to Shanghai because we were talking about this opportunity with Qibao High School. And Dwight's interest in being involved with Qibao is the opportunity to be involved in educating Chinese nationals," said Brantley Turner.

"Our students are those who have done very well in the Chinese system. A typical student who is interested in our school is interested in international education, in going abroad to study. They are also interested in retaining some aspects of Chinese learning. We're trying to find a balance between both."

With the launch of cooperatively-run schools in Shanghai last year with NYU Shanghai, Turner said they saw their opportunity to make their mark in the city. She believes her school will provide another option for students who might have considered going abroad or going to a Chinese public school.

Unlike international schools whose classes are taught entirely in English, Qibao Dwight teaches some subjects like politics and history in Chinese, although the curriculum is still mainly based on International Baccalaureate (IB) standards. According to the vice principal, the school is thinking big, trying to develop original Chinese courses that can be universally applied based on IB guidelines.

At present, the school, which charges 138,000 yuan in tuition fees per year, has observed that many of its Chinese students' have parents with an overseas education background. Some overseas returnees holding a Chinese passport, who are not allowed to apply to international schools, also applied. There are also several foreign students there because of their strong interest in China. "It would be hard for foreigners to be here if they think of it as an international school," said Turner.

Just like NYU Shanghai, the power of the school's network has become one of the main draws for students and parents. Qibao Dwight is the fifth school in the Dwight network, with the other four in New York, London, Seoul and Canada. Qibao Dwight students can participate in short-term exchanges to Dwight schools abroad while enrolled in Shanghai.

A limited impact

More international schools, whether independently or cooperatively-run, will definitely result in more choice for a certain subset of Shanghai's students. But experts are conservative in estimating the ability of these new players to internationalize the city's overall school system.

"These schools only have limited independence in how they're managed. Therefore, the role they can play in advancing the reform of China's education system will be extremely limited," Xiong Bingqi, vice president at 21st Century Education Research Institute, told the Global Times.

The restricted autonomy limits the ability of a cooperatively-run school to seek outside funding, a major source of scholarships, and one which could help drive down tuition fees, Xiong said.

He also said that it's likely that the schools' management style will continue to exhibit strongly Chinese characteristics. Citing NYU Shanghai as an example, he said that when recruiting a Chinese student, the school referred to a student's performance on the gaokao (national college enrollment exams), their academic scores in high school years and an overall quality evaluation. "This is no difference from the recruitment standards at 80 domestic universities."

Xiong suggested that for these schools to exert real influence, one meaningful change would be to increase students' choices by allowing them to gain admission to more than one university. "If a student could get admission from a couple of universities, say NYU Shanghai is one of them, and they eventually decide on NYU Shanghai because of the scholarship it offers is attractive, then we can say that's truly something new [in Chinese education]. We can then say NYU Shanghai has made a real contribution to advancing education reform in China."

In Xiong's view, the schools' potential impact would be widened even further if Chinese education authorities would allow foreign schools to directly open their branch schools on the mainland, independently recruit students and issue diplomas on their own. "This would increase competition and push forward education reform in the country."