This article is authorized to be transferred from: Guyu Planet (ID: guyujihua2021), author: Mu Mu
Hello everyone, I am Mu Mu, a teacher at an international school.
Over the years in the international education industry, I have changed from an idealist with an infinite vision of whole-person education to a person who gradually disenchants international schools as I know more and more.
Among them, the most disillusioned thing for me was to experience the collapse of an international school like an ideal country in my heart.
My relationship with this school began five years ago. When I first heard about the school, I was fascinated by its educational philosophy and academic background, especially when I learned about the high profile of the committee and the former principal of the Ivy League school, so I immediately applied for the job.
I was fortunate enough to be part of the founding team in my first month of school, and I had no hope that I would see it go from glory to silence anytime soon.
I'm just an ordinary employee, and I don't know the ins and outs of the incident, but I have witnessed some key moments that may serve as a wake-up call for parents who choose a school:
How can a school that looks good be gone?
The turmoil begins: a change of investors
Even in hindsight, I never thought that the closure of the school was foreshadowed or deliberate.
With the dream of education, teachers gathered from all over the world, all hoping to build a school that would be useful to children.
But the core of instability is a fact that has existed since the founding of the school.
As for the reasons for the closure of schools, there is speculation that "unlicensed schools are reported", "investor turnover" and "management team changes", these three factors are all crucial, but why are other schools with similar factors still alive and well?
From an internal point of view, perhaps the sequence of events is even more crucial.
The source of everything may lie in the replacement of investors.
We all know that schools are not companies, and the relationship between students, parents and schools is crucial. However, for a somewhat special international school, the relationship between investors, principals and middle and senior management is crucial in order to move forward steadily and prosperously.
Investors, in particular, are the real decision-makers behind the scenes, which are invisible to parents.
Therefore, when faced with difficulties, I often hear the president say, "I need to ask the chairman for advice", because I do not have the final decision-making power, so I miss many opportunities to make amends.
And when investors realize that the amount of money needed to run a school is far beyond the original budget, they are likely to look for a takeover.
As for whether the educational philosophy between the new and old investors is the same, whether they can seek the greatest well-being for students, it is never the most important factor to consider.
As an ordinary employee, I have no way of knowing when the previous boss started thinking about selling the school and to whom. It was only on a working day one winter that everyone received a verbal notice:
The school's investors have changed from A to B, and the enrollment target has increased from a few hundred to thousands.
■The picture comes from the new theory, as of August 2023, the total number of accredited international schools in Chinese mainland is 970, and the total market size is 67 billion yuan, especially in the past few years, there has been a lot of mutual exchange between capital and education, and now the entire market has become a stock market.
Yes, only verbal notice.
Many important things in the school are verbal notices, and there is never a trace of official documents. Even the final notice of dissolution was conveyed by word of mouth.
If there are any signs of flameout, this is perhaps the most obvious.
In fact, when they learned that there were new investors, it did not affect the teachers' enthusiasm for education, or even their expectations, which is not new for international schools, as long as it does not affect the quality of running schools, it is also normal.
Perhaps under the leadership of the new investors, the educational promises made with teachers and parents will be realized.
However, the educational philosophy of the new investor deviated greatly from the actual management team of the school, and we were surprised by the series of actions taken by the new investor after taking over the school.
The new decision-maker's view of education: parents do not approve
At the beginning of the butterfly effect, there are always some inconspicuous things.
The first adjustment made by the new investors was the logistics canteen. The school used to provide free meals for faculty and staff, but only provided free lunches and charged for breakfast and dinner, the rich menu became only Chinese food, fruits, desserts and drinks for students to enjoy, and the original supply of fresh seasonal fruits was reduced to apples and bananas, and even health was not always possible.
This series of changes led to the first batch of dissatisfaction, with some parents mentioning in their complaints: "How can you trust that the school can really be student-centred if you can't even do basic insulation measures for food?".
These dietary changes, which seem to have nothing to do with education, actually reflect the differences in educational philosophies between the two sides.
■In an article on the official account of the interface, "The History of the "Birth" of International Schools: Twenty Years of Capital and Education", it is also mentioned that at the beginning of the entry of international schools into China, this difference in concepts that has nothing to do with education often affects the progress of running schools