How British schools can succeed in new, emerging and mature markets in Asia IPSEF conference

A new and challenging phase

The landscape for British international schools wanting to expand into Asia is entering a new and more challenging phase, according to Ali Aliev, director of business development at North London Collegiate School (NLCS) International, who believes long-term success will increasingly depend on strategy, operational capability and carefully planned expansion, rather than brand recognition alone.

Speaking at the International Private Schools and Education Forum, IPSEF Global London 2026, Aliev said the sector had changed markedly over the past decade, as had the maturity of some Asian markets, as well as the competitive environment in Asia and the expectations of parents in the region.

When British school first began to open facilities in the region, there was a low supply of international schools and it was easier to differentiate the offering to parents and students, as well as demonstrate the difference from the existing schools, he said. This meant that the first credible entrants benefitted from being early in the phase, whereas now there was more supply, stronger local competitors, more demanding parents and greater pressure on consistency and outcomes.

For much of the last decade, the conversation has been dominated by a growth story, particularly around expansion into China and making the most of the opportunities in that market. However, new regulations and a more mature market there meant that international schools will face a different set of challenges over the next decade, he said.

“We will be talking a lot more about protecting ourselves from the headwinds and about winning sustainably as markets become more competitive, parents become more discerning, and having a British brand alone is no longer enough,” he told delegates.

Previously in the Asian markets “anyone teaching an international curriculum backed by a name on the crest could create a meaningful difference”. This could be seen in the experience of new operators going into in several Asian markets. The first serious entrants benefitted from what he called “a trust premium”, something which NLCS enjoyed in Jeju Island in South Korea and Harrow School benefited from in Bangkok. However, he warned that this was increasingly not the case. The group’s more recent openings in Dubai, Singapore, Japan, Thailand and Hong Kong had taken place in far more competitive environments.

“The environment is now changing and in more developed and more visible markets in Asia, there is now more supply, stronger local and regional competition and a much more informed customer base,” he said. In addition, parents were more focussed on the transferable skills that schools could equip their children with, rather than the straightforward appeal of an international curriculum.

“Parents can now actually compare the schools not on the brand promise, but on the quality of the outcomes and on consistency of execution,” he said, pointing to the shift from predominantly expatriate driven markets to more demand from local parents. This changing demographic meant families were now “increasingly looking for a different proposition”.

There was a new demand for schools to teach “local students globally competitive skills” he said. “That means that the basis for the competition is changing,” he added. “What was enough to succeed in an earlier growth phase is no longer working in a more mature market.”

The importance of planning over brand reputation

Aliev explained that in many mature Asian markets, the value of a prestigious British school name and label has changed. While it may be “an entry ticket” into a mature market, it is not necessarily the guarantee of long-term success. Other factors now play a bigger role.

“A strong brand creates trust, credibility, awareness and detention,” he said. “The real question for independent schools is not whether the parent brand is strong. It is whether the brand can travel through the whole value chain from recognition to proposition to delivery of the outcomes.”

As the market is becoming saturated in some regions, schools need to be able to demonstrate why their own unique approach could be differentiated and why it matters to parents and to operators.

“The deeper the competition, the further down the pyramid the advantage must travel,” he said. “The reality is that only a few brands travel well outside of the UK. At the very top we have heritage institutions like Eton and Westminster. In the middle, we have British boarding schools and schools that achieve top academic outcomes. After that, there is a long tail of everyone else who has a name and a logo.”

He said that in order to succeed schools needed to focus on articulating what made their brand different and to offer evidence to show how they were different and how they provided long term quality. They also needed to be prepared to invest heavily in the territories where they were operating. 

Creating value for parents and for commercial partners 

Aliev also discussed how many independent schools used a franchising model in which “the school provides the brand, some guiding principles, checks the standards and the operators do everything else”. 

This model needed to be examined to measure the right outcomes and monitor where the most value was being created. He also stressed the importance of the school brand and the operator sharing the same long term objectives, and questioned the level of control an independent school might have if investment came from a third party. 

To build a lasting competitive advantage, schools need to define more clearly what distinguishes them, continue investing in their reputation internationally rather than only in their domestic markets, and reach sufficient scale to ensure families and prospective partners recognise the organisation.

“In my view, we can dramatically improve our influence by investing in capability and systems that adds value to the partner,” he said, adding that the strongest school enterprises win in two markets, not one. 

“As an industry, we will talk a lot about our proposition to the B2C market, meaning parents and students, but there is also a second B2B market where schools compete for operating partners, investors, landlords, developers and other stakeholders who determine what opportunities one can realistically pursue,” he said.

Creating a strong B2B brand gave schools the strongest leverage as it added more value to partners, and made the school itself much more attractive when it was looking for new partners. “In addition, the quality of the B2B brand often determines the quality of the sites, relationships and opportunities that come in the first place,” he said. Rather than approaching international expansion primarily as selling the rights to use the school brand name, something that many schools do, there was a better and more thorough way to ensure success.

“International growth is fundamentally an exercise in developing relevant capability,” he said. “Success depends on the ability to select the sites, adapt the proposition intelligently to the market, assess commercial visibility, recruit international teachers, and integrate new campuses into a procurement network.” 

He said that this was the system through which the school brand is translated into reality, and as the market becomes more competitive, “these capabilities matter even more”. 

Ali Aliev’s key takeaways

• Consistency of execution is the new brand premium. In increasingly mature markets, premium position is sustained not by the promise alone, but by confidence and execution. As the sector becomes crowded, schools cannot rely on labels alone.
• Parents want to know that the experience that they and their children receive will match the brand and that it will be well executed. Outcomes are more important that promises. 
• Partners want to know that the operating model will be dependable. Does the quality of leadership, staffing, culture and educational delivery remain recognisably coherent across locations?
• Trust is essential. One of the most important forms of competitive advantage in Asia’s next phase will be the ability to deliver educational experience consistently. Inconsistency will be expensive in the long term. It damages trust, weakens reputation and undermines commercial resilience. 
• Delivering quality is essential. If a school group wants to scale or sustain advantage, it must invest in the capabilities that make high quality delivery repeatable. These must be capabilities which operators would struggle to achieve on their own.
• Expansion is only successful if you are selective about your location and you plan properly. Country level ambition is not enough. The real strategic unit is the city and the partner of choice. In a more mature environment, selective growth is often far more powerful than broad expansion. 
• In a mature market, you will be judged on the quality of your product, not how well you imitate the brand that is being franchised. As the sector becomes crowded, schools cannot rely on labels alone, and instead need to deliver a consistently differentiated experience.