Why Investment in the Education Sector Is Rising across the Asia Pacific

There’s been an increasing realization of the significance of education in a person’s life across most economies in the Asian region. In most cases, the attainment of education has come to be directly linked with the quality of life and earning prospects. Research points out that the private sector education market is worth over an astounding $370 billion. The transforming demographics across the Asian Pacific region as well as favorable macroeconomic trends such as rising incomes have forced such a realization on the masses and facilitated the trend towards education attainment.

There is a rising middle-class across most economies of the region, the average family sizes are shrinking, and double-income households are quite common. These parents increasingly seek top-notch academic options to give their child the best start possible.

For example, in Hong Kong, English medium schools went from 92 in 2000 to 177 in 2017. The number of students enrolled in these schools has also twice increased over this period. Even other Asian countries such as Japan, Thailand, and China have seen a surge in the demand for English medium education.  The international school chains have proliferated immensely over the past few years, which has added to the competition for the students. The quality of education is of utmost importance; more than it ever was before. As a result, the reputation of the private institution, teaching quality and the curriculum are all given considerable importance by the parents when deciding which school to send their child to.

Therefore, private education is naturally a booming industry. Investments have been on the rise across this sector.

International schools with established chains of schooling networks find the Asia Pacific region a market too lucrative to be passed up and are increasingly making their way into these economies. Typically, a foreign business chooses the joint venture route to enter into the local private education market. They go on to form partnerships with the already established schooling networks that have a thorough understanding of the local laws and regulations as well as the local educational landscape.

This allows them to compete more effectively with the established local players in the market. Furthermore, with access to the financial resources of foreign investors, they are perfectly poised to continue to grow in this lucrative sector.