The centre will provide Korean language courses for international students; accommodation and social programmes; and English language and academic testing for local students.

Managing director, Ian Pratt, said high demand in other Asian countries such as Japan and Thailand had prompted the leap into this niche market. “We’d like to take this partly as a vote of confidence in the Lexis brand, but also as an indication of just how much interest there is out there in less traditional study travel destinations – and Korea in particular,” he told The PIE News.

“We are looking to establish ourselves as a key player in the Korean language tuition market”

“We’ve gone for quite a substantial investment in the new premises, and are looking to establish ourselves as a key player in the Korean language tuition market.”

Intensive Korean, TOPIK (Test of Proficiency in Korean) Preparation and one-to-one classes will be on offer at the Lexis Korea centre, which is located next to the Gangnam Station in Seoul. Accommodation options include student dorms, studio apartments and homestay.

Set to open August 5, the school will also act as an academic test centre for English language students. “At this point we think that we’ll have similar numbers of students in both the English and the Korean programmes, but it’s hard to tell,” said Pratt.

This is the first venture outside Australia for Lexis, which launched as the Sunshine Coast English College in 1989 in Noosa, Queensland. It opened centres in Brisbane, Byron Bay, Sunshine Coast and Perth between 2006 and 2010 before rebranding the group as Lexis English in 2011.

More than 2,000 adult students per annum and 700 junior students from more than 50 countries around the world study across its centres.