BCP Social Sciences & Humanities ISSS 2022 Volume 16 (2022) 82 Research on the Necessity for the Establishment of International School in China Kun Liu 1, a, *, Ai Yang 2, b, Mengyuan Chen 3, c, Qingqing ChenLuo 4, d 1. Faculty of Business, Finance, Information Technology, and Hospitality, MAHSA University, Kuala Lumpur, 42610, Malaysia 2. Evergrande School of Management, Wuhan University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430000, China 3. School of Tourism and Hospitality, Management Development Institute of Singapore, Singapore, 148951, Singapore 4. School of Accounting and Finance, Curtin University, Perth, 6102, Western Australia, Australia a, * rbk@vip.163.com, b 934509632@qq.com, c SIDI2103051982@students.mdis.edu.sg, d lcqq101625@gmail.com Abstract. With the globalization development, schools around the world have embraced a globally oriented model of education. An embraced change that combines international education with traditional education has become a new trend for the future. Due to the acceleration of internationalization, more and more people have been seeking a higher quality of teaching and learning. The presence of an international school allows students to acquire a second language while having a good foundation in their mother tongue, and at the same time, it may also provide them a different concept from the one they would get from a regular school. Global education has become an irreplaceable part of modern education. In this paper, the development of the worldwide international schools has been introduced, and the hypotheses and discussion of the necessity for the establishment of international school in China has been obtained. Finally, the future trend and evolvement of the international school in China 2022 is also analyzed in the end of the paper. Keywords: International School; Worldwide Development; Global Citizenship Education (GCE); Educational Industry; Future Evolvement. 1. Introduction In recent years, schools around the world have embraced a globally oriented model of education. Nick Bowley once said that the most important feature of Chinese education is that examinations are often used to assess the amount and extent of knowledge gained by students. But decades of teaching experience have made it clear to Nick that the world is evolving rapidly and there are many uncertainties. For young people, it is important to have the ingenuity to create the possibilities of the future [1]. In the face of unpredictable changes such as climate change, artificial intelligence and quantum computers, the presence of international education and teaching will certainly enable young people to find their own internal motivation and global orientation for development. In this context, international schools are growing around the world and the number of schools and students has reached a new level where students need to move from constructing a single national identity to a global perspective. At the same time, international schools are redefining their operations, teaching and atmosphere, and they are beginning to adopt a more broadly inclusive curriculum to make students more internationally competitive. With the development of the internet, access to knowledge has become easier and some people think that recognition is no longer important. But the truth is that all you can find on the internet is nothing more than information, and knowledge needs to be organised by the brain to be formed, so how you acquire and master knowledge is extremely important. On the other hand, the international school curriculum includes not only the basics, but also guides students to develop creative logic and thinking so that they have the ability to explore knowledge and learn rationally. BCP Social Sciences & Humanities ISSS 2022 Volume 16 (2022) 83 2. Worldwide Development Status of International School The number of international schools worldwide has indeed increased rapidly since the turn of the 21st century. In 2000, there were 2,584 international schools in the world with approximately 1 million students. In 2010, the number of international schools and students worldwide reached 5,600 and approximately 2.5 million respectively, with an increase of 117% and 150% from 2000. In 2018, there were 9,605 schools worldwide with approximately 5.1 million students, with an increase of 72% and 104% respectively from 2010. Meanwhile, international schools are forecast to continue their strong growth over the next decade. By 2028, the total number of international schools is expected to exceed 16,000 and the number of students to be close to 10 million, with an increase of 67% and 96% respectively [2]. Figure 1. The status and prediction of international schools worldwide In terms of the distribution of international schools, Dubai leads the way with 306 international schools, followed by Shanghai, Abu Dhabi, and Beijing with 169, 160 and 142 international schools respectively. Buenos Aires, Doha, Phnom Penh, Singapore, and Tokyo also have a high number of international schools, mostly in the range of 120-140. From this distribution, around a third of enrolment is concentrated in four key markets in Asia: the UAE, China, Saudi Arabia, and India, with 6.422 million, 4.893 million, 3.205 million and 2.964 million students respectively [2]. Figure 2. Global distribution of international schools in major cities BCP Social Sciences & Humanities ISSS 2022 Volume 16 (2022) 84 3. Hypothesis and Discussion Hypothesis 1. The growth of international school’s students and tuition income help leading the development of related industry. With the rise of international schools, the annual tuition revenue generated by international schools is on an upward trend and the related industry is expected to see a rapid growth. In 2018, the direct tuition revenue of international schools worldwide was approximately US$49 billion, providing full- time employment for 476,000 employees worldwide. In addition, direct tuition revenue is expected to reach US$95 billion by 2028, with a CAGR of approximately 6.84% in tuition revenue from 2018- 2028 [3]. Table 1. Direct tuition income of worldwide international schools Year 2018 2028E Income(billion) 49 95 Increase 6.84% Hypothesis 2. Bilingualism provides a rewarding environment for students to use their bilingual talents in learning and communication. Due to the advancement of globalisation, knowledge and skills in English are receiving increasing attention and have become one of the most important requirements for the elite. This change has been facilitated by the increasing number of foreigners and parents seeking to give their children a Western education. Studies have shown that employees with above-average English language skills can earn 30% to 50% higher salaries compared to the others even at the same position [3-4]. International schools are therefore arguably the earliest and most important exposure to English for students living in non-English speaking countries. In the case of Vietnamese international schools, the bilingual identity of international students is reflected not only in their performance of language practices, but also in their language beliefs. The researcher sought to identify the factors associated with the social and cultural connections, interactions and investments in this particular identity. Interviews with three students from international schools in Vietnam were used to explore how socio-cultural factors related to the school's language policy, teachers, and peers, as well as interactive factors, influenced their performance in language practice. These three students confirmed that Vietnamese and English were used as languages of instruction in their schools. They used both Vietnamese and English when studying and communicating at school. They often spoke Vietnamese in the classroom of their Vietnamese teacher and English in the classroom of their English teacher [4]. Factors that influence students' practice of Vietnamese and English are ways of developing their competence. The school's language policy requires the use of Vietnamese and English as mediated instruction. There is a need to create an enabling environment for students to make full use of the bilingual repertoire in their learning and communication, so that their language skills are seen as a resource [5]. As students associate their imagined future identity with English and global mobility rather than with Vietnamese and local experience, schools should play an important role in encouraging students to think more globally and contribute positively to their local communities. Hypothesis 3. Global Citizenship Education (GCE) can enlighten traditional education to provide a more holistic and personalized model of teaching and learning. Around the world, schools and education are challenging and reforming their curricula to respond to the processes of globalisation. These adaptations and reforms reveal a positivist orientation towards a more globally oriented model of education. the GCE aims to "prepare students to participate in the 'global competition' of future educational and employment destinations, to engage in 'global problem solving' and, broadly speaking, to better respond to the challenges in which globally connected contemporary societies must engage". As a result of these changes, international schools are expected to have a more complex set-up to achieve their goals, which broadly reflects the changing notion of BCP Social Sciences & Humanities ISSS 2022 Volume 16 (2022) 85 what it means to be a good citizen. The concept of change [6]. the GCE offers only a potential value and abstraction, but with regulations to ensure its application, it can align an otherwise diverse student body to a more holistic, globally oriented set of skills and attitudes [7]. 4. Analysis of Opportunities and Challenges in the Development of International Schools in China 4.1 Entrepreneurial Opportunities in the International Education Sector in the Chinese Market The number of private international schools is growing rapidly. In 2017, there were 126 schools for children of expatriates, four new schools compared to last year, with the new institutions mainly located in the south [8]. Private international schools may increase by 30-50 schools a year, and the increase falls into two main categories: one is for international education institutions to open new branches in the field; the other is for institutions in other fields to start laying out or transforming into international schools [9]. As of 2017, there were more than 350 private international schools across the country. The international section of public schools is basically at a standstill because of the instability of government policies, with only Guangxi and Sichuan having a small increase [10]. The international school sector is very hot right now. Of course, there are reasons for the increment, one is the rigid demand for children to go to school; the other is consumer upgrading. It is understood that in Beijing a new brand of international school, recruiting 200 children, there are 400 children enrolled, and primary school tuition fees for the first year will be 220,000-233,000, for 15 years of schooling, plus other expenses on average 300,000 tuition fees, 15 years corresponding to 4.5 million, 300,000 students in the case of the family's quality of life is not affected by the projection of the family's annual income [11]. The tuition fee of 200,000 is not yet met and with the liberalisation of the two-child policy, the industry is unsaturated and in an unmet state. If the tuition fee is reduced from 220,000 to 150,000 or even to 100,000, it can be predicted that the demand for the industry will be amplified [12-13], the trend of such industry is boosting, and there are many investment opportunities. 4.2 Key Elements for the Development of International Schools in China International schools are supposed to re-design curriculum content that integrates Chinese culture with the international curriculum. The curriculum in international schools has gone through a period from when no one was in charge to when the government started to regulate it, and the teaching content was requested to cover the local Chinese culture and related specialities after then. After the curriculum comes the teaching staff [14]. The teachers for the international schools are relatively easy to recruit with the help of a foreign teaching company. However, the serious shortage of bilingual teachers is also a problem currently [15], as most of universities in China do not have good training programmes to train bilingual teachers. In the future this needs to be complemented and raised to a higher level of strategy, and more government and university resources are needed to make this work. International schools need to find management teams that understand operations. The most difficult thing for international schools is to find the right people to run the school. Without the right management it may end up with many serious problems, e.g., one international school was almost collapsed due to financial problems which was caused by the poor management skills. Therefore, schools need to understand what the nature of the school is, and private schools need to have the dual characteristics of Business and School to survive in the market and be a school at the same time. Hence, the only way to run a good business is to integrate both sides [16-17]. Weak infrastructure is the main challenge facing international schools today. Any industry has an infrastructure, and in this case the infrastructure refers to the chain of services in other related areas upstream and downstream of the industry that are not doing school [18]. The focus of an international school in different cities is also different [19]. Parents in Tier 1 cities are more concerned with the BCP Social Sciences & Humanities ISSS 2022 Volume 16 (2022) 86 product itself, with the brand taking second place, while parents in Tier 2 and 3 cities are more concerned with the brand. With regard to access to cities, Tier 1 cities such as Beijing and Shanghai cannot be fully satisfied because of their large cities and wealthy population, so even if a brand is newly established, parents may consider about it as long as the product is good and meets their expectations, so now most international schools in Beijing are newly established brands and no brands are introduced [20]. Whereas, for Tier 3-4 cities, even including provincial capitals, it is more different. Brands are relatively more important because parents are still relatively less knowledgeable about international schools and rely more on brands based on authenticity [21]. 4.3 How the International Education Sector is Evolving in 2022 With frequent policy announcements in 2021, the development of international schools is foggy and faces unprecedented challenges. In this context, the integration of resources and information sharing across the international school industry is crucial. The number of new accredited Chinese international schools nationwide has been decreasing year on year since 2019, and in 2021, the number of new accredited Chinese international schools nationwide is at its lowest level in nearly a decade. As the majority of Chinese international schools are privately-run, regulatory policies in recent years have continued to tighten the international education sector in China. It is believed that this tightening of the sector does not mean that private education will die out, but that there is a need for private international schools to exist [22]. There is a continued demand for international education in China, and with the government's initiatives to open up education to the outside world, the future of international education remains promising. In 2021, China also issued the Regulations on the Implementation of the Law on the Promotion of Private Education, the Opinions on Regulating the Development of Private Compulsory Education, the Opinions on Further Reducing the Burden of Homework and Off-Campus Training on Students in Compulsory Education, and the Notice on Regulating the Organization of or Participation in the Organization of Private Compulsory Education Schools by Public Schools [23]. China has introduced new regulatory requirements for private schools in five areas: the threshold for running a school, the nature of running a school, operational management, industry prohibitions, and supervision and punishment [24]. The newly amended Regulations on the Implementation of the Law on the Promotion of Private Education require private schools to "improve the quality and characteristics of their operations and meet diversified educational needs". This is an inspiration for international schools to plan their development in 2022 [25]. 5. Conclusion The internationalization of higher education combines the political and economic status. At the same time, the development stage of the internationalization of higher education can be regarded as a life cycle, which is consistent with the national political and economic development trend. International schools feature bilingual education with an eye on future educational goals, creating a positive environment for students' exploration and creative abilities, while a global teaching philosophy can provide a broader range of ideas for students' individual development. As a result, more and more people are choosing international schools, which also boost the economic benefits of the related industries. References [1] Qiang X., 2020. Don’t give up on any child, J. Policy Research & Exploration, 2020, 07, pp.66-69. 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