Jan Capper heads up an organisation for independent language schools around the world that commit to high standard quality audits and share best practice resources among the community. She talks about developments at the association and industry trends.
The PIE: We understand you are reviewing your membership policy?
JC: Our current rules on territory depend on the popularity of a destination for study travel, rather than its population size. You can have a big city like Birmingham with few schools, whereas Bournemouth might have 30 schools, for example. So we do a rough count of language schools and categorise destinations into 3 groups: 1 member in a small destination; 2 members in a medium destination and in the top category destination, 3 to 4 members. These bandings are under review.
The PIE: And this is different to limiting the number of schools one member organisation can have?
JC: Yes. In fact, we haven’t needed to set a maximum, since our territorial policy makes it very unlikely any big organisation could join, because one or other of their destinations will already be ‘full’. The highest number of centres any member has at the moment is 4 – but this could be 5 or 6. That is one of things we are looking at when reviewing membership policy; whether and where to set a limit.
The PIE: Why are you doing this?
JC: It’s not that we’re losing members because they are growing and have to go; the reason is that good independent schools are takeover targets for expanding chains and corporate groups. That’s fine, that’s normal in business in any industry. All we are doing is saying this is the reality, and we need to address it. When we lost LSC [in Canada], suddenly we were without 4 good schools in Canada. To have your membership fluctuating like that and all of a sudden dropping – we’ve got to look at that.
The PIE: Tell us about the early origins of IALC; it was formed to give independent schools a USP over chains, wasn’t it?
JC: The association was formed by a group of independent language schools. It was really in response to growing competition – they wanted to distinguish themselves from chains; from state-subsidised institutions; and seeing themselves as higher quality, they wanted to distinguish themselves from “run of the mill” so: high quality, private and independent.
The PIE: How was high quality manifested?
JC: I believe it started with knowing each other by reputation. Quality standards came later, in terms of introducing our own accreditation scheme as the association grew.
The PIE: Have you always had a waiting list?
JC: We’ve always had a lot of interest from schools, some of which would become members if we didn’t have our territorial policy.
The PIE: How do you think the market is going to change as consolidation continues?
“I don’t see any industry where independent operators have been wiped out”
JC: In various ways, but I think there will always be boutique, independent schools, new start-ups. I think the entrepreneurs will continue to come into the industry and I don’t see any industry, the travel industry, hotel industry, where independent operators have been wiped out. But I think there will be more chains, and more takeovers. One observation that we have made at IALC is that the first-generation of school owners are now in their 60s. Either they are looking for succession or they are looking for an exit, which means to sell. We are expecting quite a lot of activity and handing over of reins in various ways in the next few years.
The PIE: Do you think the original product is going to change in the hands of big multinational organisations?
JC: What we see, which is also reflected in the research we have done with agents, is that chains are good with facilities. We think that some independents will have to look – however good their academic product and their care of students – at investing in facilities because the chains are leading the way there. [more>>]
The PIE: And certain countries are leading the way, as I understand. This was a point made by Andrew Mangion of EC [during The PIE plenary panel debate] about facilities in North America and Australia, and schools have to look at this.
JC: I think he’s right and that itself isn’t that new – I can remember going to Australia in the 90s and seeing some of our member schools. Partly because there are fewer historical buildings… they were more likely to be in office space with standard size rooms and modern fittings, with less of the quirky old architecture that you get in Europe! When students have that level of space, comfort and decor, of course their expectations are raised.
The PIE: Language learning is increasingly seen as stepping stone to international education. Are IALC members active in this sphere?
JC: A lot of members work in university preparation and university partnerships. It depends on where they are in the world and on the education system in their country; whether it’s traditional for language schools to link with higher education or not. The Australians all have pathways programmes, for example.
The PIE: Does IALC organise seminars or market intelligence on these industry areas?
JC: In the last few years, we’ve run information-sharing seminars, mainly given by other members. This is something that we are developing as we have seen in surveys of members how useful it is. The benefits of membership for them are marketing, accreditation and the sharing of knowledge with largely non-competitive, colleagues. That third benefit is actually very important to them, not a little extra.
We see that as an important benefit of membership and we want that to grow. These are people doing the same thing in many different countries. It’s not just, “how do you run a good language school?” For an English language school interested in the Chinese market, for example, it helps that you can have a colleague in IALC who understands Chinese business culture.
“Benefits include the sharing of knowledge with largely non-competitive colleagues”
The PIE: Do you think different world regions have different standards?
JC: We’ve considered recently whether members that have a tough national inspection scheme could be exempted from part of our quality scheme, but we decided that we need to continue to inspect all members. It really isn’t the case that you can’t have excellent standards in a country without a national accreditation scheme, although perhaps baseline standards are higher in countries with national schemes.
The PIE: And how do you see the market changing in the future?
JC: I really expect to see more international agency chains at some point. Generally, I think that language school facilities and use of technology will improve.
The PIE: What about the agent position in the distribution chain? IALC is a very agent-friendly and agent-centric organisation..
JC: Yes it is… well with education, people like advice and reassurance. There are issues to do with visas and so on; trying to find it out all on your own can be difficult. Talking to someone in your own country in your own language who has some expertise makes sense to me. And look at the quality of agent websites these days… how they have adapted and used the internet… I think they are still providing a very good service and fulfilling a need.
