Page 8 - ELG1601 Dec Issue 442

Page 8 ELmarket report December 2016

Do Chinese make the right choice?
s a rule of thumb, 2 sufficient attention to the Brit-
per cent of all students ish Council information in this
Aenrolled in local lan- area. Nearly 10 per cent of all
guage schools in their home providers reporting Chinese jun-
country will buy at least one Melanie Butler asks why so few Chinese students choose iors have not yet been inspected
language travel package dur- for child protection. In one case,
ing their studies, according to language travel, and looks at which kinds of centres they go to a provider whose largest market
research by Student Market- was China failed child protec-
ing. With 300 million Chinese tion on its first inspection under
learning English and at least meaning they range from very school courses but are being sold the new regulations and had its
10 million students enrolled in good to excellent. courses run by private providers accreditation put under review.
the estimated 50,000 language However, neither university in boarding schools. In another case, a spot check of a
schools, this would give a poten- language centres nor further There are over twenty high- private language school running
tial language travel market of education colleges offer the quality vacation course providers its first residential course found
between 200,000 and 400,000 kind of short general English in the EL Gazette rankings, but that the Chinese group leader
students. courses that make up the major- only four of them report signifi- had left the boarding school
While China is the strongest ity of language travel. Courses cant Chinese student enrolments. campus where the course was
international education market shorter that three months are By contrast over a third of the taking place without informing
in the world for both high school the almost exclusive territory major providers are white label the operator on the very day a
and higher education, its pres- of private language schools, 52 organisations enrolling Chinese Chinese child went missing. So
ence in EFL, at least in the UK per cent of which are now mem- children which do not sell direct far, there is no evidence that any
market, remains small if grow- bers of chains. Chain schools to the consumer, suggesting that Chinese child has come to seri-
ing. Only a quarter of accredited outperform independent private commission levels, not quality, ous harm, but all parents would
language centres report signifi- language schools on average may be driving agent choice. be well advised to demand the
cant number of Chinese students Courtesy Montgomery County Planning Commission but are generally inconsistent In the junior market it is not name of the provider running the
in their British Council inspec- in terms of the quality metrics only the quality of the course course from the agent and check
tions and most of those are used by the British Council. Chi- that counts, it is also the strength its child protection status on our
accounted for by two sectors: nese enrolment in chain schools of their child protection meas- consumer-based website EL-go.
the universities and the residen- reflect this inconsistency. ures. There is some evidence that com before allowing their child
tial summer school operators. So When Chinese students or Chinese agents are not paying to board the plane. n
where are the Chinese? their agents do choose inde-
As Figure 1 demonstrates, on pendent language schools, they Figure 1: quality profiles of UK
average Chinese students enrol NEED TO KNOW The data shows that, when Chinese students choose badly. Two thirds of
at more ‘high-quality’ centres, choose independent language schools, they generally choose badly all the language schools with accredited language centres
with British Council inspection significant Chinese enrolment 120
reports standing as a proxy for the boarding school sector, and tion colleges, which also offer rank below average. Only one
quality, than the industry aver- the majority of the remainder are pre-degree programmes, and five-star school is popular with 110
age. However, that is in part enrolled in four star schools. just 12.3 per cent of private lan- the Chinese: the Lake School of
due to its high use of the uni- The adult market is dominated guage schools. The accredited English in Oxford. Yet the top 100
versity sector. When we look at by the university sector. Sixty university language centres sec- of the rankings is dominated by 90
the figures for under-16s course per cent of accredited university tor is both consistent and high the well-established independent
providers (Figure 2), the picture language centres report Chi- performing: 87 per cent score centres like the members of Ten 80 40
does not look so rosy; there is a nese as a significant nationality between five and twelve points (The English Network), an asso- 36
large cluster of students in five- group. That compares to just of strength, which puts them in ciation of independent centres 70
star schools, almost always in 28 per cent of further educa- either the four- or five-star band, which consistently outperforms 32
all the chains of a similar size. 60 28
No member of Ten reported a 50
significant number of Chinese 40 24
enrolments in their most recent
20
Learn and Grow! inspection. 30 16
If we discount the students
enrolled in university lan-
guage centres, most of which 20 12
8
Hujiang, China’s leading e-learning platform with over 110 million essentially offer preparation 10
users, is hiring online ESL teachers & instructors globally! programmes for further study, 4
the number of adult Chinese 0 0
Position: Online ESL Teacher/Instructor coming to study English remains
Feature: Part-time, home based extraordinarily low.
Area: ELT of general English, business English, IELTS, TOEFL By contrast, there is little doubt
Pay: £8–50 / hour depending on the experience that the Chinese junior market is
and qualifications universities (all students)
Apply: teach@hujiang.com large and growing: over 40 per
cent of the specialist vacation non-universities (all students)
Synopsis course providers report Chinese
As an online English teacher with Hujiang, you are making learning easier, fairer and more as a significant market for enrol- universities (significant number of Chinese)
enjoyable by providing the best quality of ESL tutorial and teaching to our e-learners from ments, and figures are similar in
various back grounds: k12 students, business professionals and learners from all kinds of industry. non-universities (Chinese)
the boarding school sector. Based
Job responsibilities on an analysis of the providers
• Guarantee classes are organized according to the company’s resources involved it seems that residential Figure 2: quality profiles of UK
• Deliver classes with the aid of company enabled systems, tools and techniques summer vacation courses make accredited young-learner specialists
• Interact in a friendly and patient manner with students up the largest sector.
• Provide a timely corrective feedback to students There are also growing reports 32
• Make action plans for students’ long-term development of closed groups, often from the 30
• Attend online/face to face training and development
same high school, looking to 28
Requirements book residential courses all year
• You speak perfect English! round. There is no evidence of 26
• You are passionate about language teaching and have a cultural awareness. Chinese enrolments in any of 24
• You possess strong communication skills and a service mind set. the specialist private language
• You have the online teaching set: a laptop, cabled internet and a noise cancelation headset. schools which run children’s 22
• You can commit a couple of hours of teaching between 7-10pm on weekdays or 9am-12pm
on weekdays. (Beijing time) courses year-round. 20 10
• You are experienced in teaching general English, business English, IELTS or TOEFL. The profile of Chinese enrol- 18
• If you are certified with TKT, TEFL or CELTA, we will prioritize your application. ments in under-16s courses is 9
very different both from that for 16 8
Please feel free to send your application and CV to teach@hujiang.com . adults and from the junior mar- 14
ket as a whole. It is divided into 7
About the company 12 6
Hujiang is a professional e-learning platform, which provides users with products and services of two clusters, with about a third of
convenience and excellence. It has evolved into a leading service system which consists four parts: providers at the top end the qual- 10 5
news and platform, online community, online tools and online courses. Since its inception, Hujiang ity scale and nearly two thirds 8
has enthusiastically supported other online education startup companies by building an online clustering towards the bottom. 4
education ecosystem with a winning formula for all. At the same time, we work with traditional schools The providers at the top-quality 6 3
to narrow the gap and promote education equity, bringing high-quality educational resources to every end are dominated by board-
corner of the world through internet. Hujiang is cooperating with more than 500 schools and 4 2
institutions including McGraw-Hill Education, Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, ing schools, while those at the 2 1
and MOOC and so on. We produce more than 20,000 public courses and lectures. bottom are dominated by vaca-
tion course providers who rent 0 0
Hujiang was not born to become a business. boarding school or university
It was born to accomplish a mission. accommodation in the vaca-
We are making learning easier, fairer and more enjoyable.
tion periods. With 90 per cent
Our Mission: Make education easier, fairer and more enjoyable. of parents sending their chil- boarding schools (all students)
Our Vision: Promote education equality and build an online educational ecosystem, dren via agents and most agents
supporting people from all cultures and economic backgrounds. white-labelling the product, it is non-boarding schools (all students)
Our Values: Be practical, but aim high. Our products and our users are of the utmost importance. likely that many families, and boarding schools (significant number of Chinese)
possibly high school principals,
are being promised boarding non-boarding schools (Chinese)

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