With China set to become the world’s leading economy in the first half of the twenty-first century and other leading economies in Asia forecast to achieve rapid growth, the ability of Western economies to compete is at the top of most government and corporate agendas. To date, much of the growth achieved by Asian economies has been through their access to cheaper labour. In the future this source of competitive advantage will inevitably be supplemented by a better educated and trained workforce.
A combination of rapid urbanisation and a fast growing middle class is reinforcing the demand for education within Asia. The British Chancellor Gordon Brown, on a recent trip to China, pointed out that by 2025 the number of English-speaking Chinese is likely to exceed the number of native English speakers in the rest of the world. Travelling around Asia in recent years I have found that education is afforded a much higher degree of importance across all aspects of society than in Western economies. Throughout Asia, there is evidence of a substantial increase in the investment in human capital created by private and governmental investment in education.
I have two brief anecdotes which relate to Nord Anglia that help to demonstrate my point about Asian attitudes to education. In September 2007, Nord Anglia will open a 400-place pre-school for Chinese children in Ningbo, a city a few hundred miles from Shanghai. In September 2006 I went to Ningbo to sign a Memorandum of Understanding with the property developer building the school and was surprised by the enormous level of interest in the project at such an early stage. Several hundred people turned up to the event including prospective parents, government officials, and the number of TV crews and reporters we in the UK would expect if David Beckham announced that he was returning to the UK Premiership.
I returned from China convinced that with 1.3 billion people and a serious commitment to developing human capital, their ambition to become the world’s strongest economy was gathering serious momentum. Back in the UK I made enquiries at my own children’s schools, two private day schools, about the availability of Mandarin as a language to study. One of the schools was encouragingly planning a few lunchtime taster sessions in Mandarin, but no formal courses were available, whilst the other school had absolutely no plans to introduce this as a subject.
My second anecdote relates to Korea, where Nord Anglia will open a pre-school for local children in March this year. We held two seminars for Korean parents during January to introduce the school and explain our approach to education. The interest in the seminars and rigorous approach of Korean parents to the school and education in general was far beyond anything we had seen whilst pre-marketing our nurseries in the UK. The Korean parents all required full details on the content of the curriculum provided and requested individual CVs for each of the teachers at the school.
Western economies are right to be worried about the competitive threat of Asia. Rising standards of living and the growing middle class will increase labour costs, eroding this aspect of relative economic advantage. However, the enormous emphasis on investment in human capital will supersede this with a far more sustainable competitive advantage that will be seen right across Asia.
While the changes in Asia are a business opportunity for Nord Anglia, as a parent, what I see in Asia reinforces my view that a central aspect to improving educational and competitive outcomes in the UK will depend as much on our attitude to education as to how and what we deliver to students at every level.
