Oscar Porras is the Director of Midleton School, a dynamic company based in Spain that offers English language teaching and a study abroad placement service. He talks to The PIE about the changing Spanish marketplace.
The PIE: So please tell me about Middleton School.
OP: We started as an English school in Madrid in 2003 and then little by little our students wanted to study abroad and we started with the agency one year later in 2004.
First we took a group of students with me to Ireland – like 10 or 15 students – now, years later, it’s our 10th anniversary and we are sending 700 students a year abroad.
The PIE: Wow. And how do you market your study abroad services?
OP: Well we go to all the educational fairs that there are in Spain, not only in Madrid, also in another cities like Barcelona and we also use the Internet to promote ourselves. Also we advertise in newspapers, magazines, we run some marketing campaigns in universities…
The PIE: How do you see demand changing in Spain?
OP: The market is changing a lot in Spain, because some years ago people could pay for example 2 or 3 weeks in Ireland or Malta and do a general English course and they didn’t care about the certificates or anything like that.
“Staff tell students from their own experience how they feel about countries”
But now, they want to go abroad and get a certificate. They need to take an official certificate like a Cambridge FCE course – they need to get an official certificate to improve their CV. They want to show that they know English and they can speak English. So it has changed quite a lot.
The PIE: Which countries are most in demand?
OP: We started in Ireland and I think that Ireland is still one of our favourites places for our students. I suppose that every agency has something different. Others sell Canada a lot, for example. It’s also the people who work in the agency. Staff tell students from their own experience how they feel about countries. I suppose we tell everybody wonderful things about Ireland! But we also sell UK, Canada, USA.
The PIE: Students can work in Ireland can’t they, do you think that is one reason for it being popular?
OP: We normally don’t organise that; we tell our students that maybe they can try and find a job themselves once they are in Ireland. The schools we work with help them with that.
The PIE: Do you think this is a reason to favour Ireland over the UK [where part-time work not permitted at a private school]?
OP: Actually, I think one of the most interesting points about going to Ireland is the fact they have the euro, not the pound. People sometimes think that they are going to lose money going to the UK. They think, maybe now euro not as strong as it used to be and they like dealing in euros. We are all a bit lazy with the euro/pound thing.
The PIE: How has the recession in Spain impacted on business?
OP: Basically the adult market is going down very much but the junior market is staying the same and the high school market is growing a lot. People are not paying for a course themselves but paying for their children.
We are noticing adult bookings going down – we dont know if it is becasue they’re doing direct bookings or if they cannot afford it. We think last year and the year before maybe they used savings, and now maybe they have run out of savings…
I would say the adult market is 20% less than last year but the high school business, that is growing something like 25 or 30%.
The PIE: Really?
OP: Yes that much. Parents who have the money are spending and investing in their children’s education.
The PIE: What do you think the future holds? Do you think there will be more demand for language training in-country?
OP: Definitely. We have over 600 students at our English school. Our school has been going really well and been growing. I think that will stay the same and I think the agency side will change because we need to adapt to new changes, maybe we will sell more courses focused on Cambridge FCE, TOEIC, TOEFL etc – more than general English. At the end of the day, people think I can already study general english in Spain maybe I should do something differnet that I can use for my CV.
The PIE: What proportion of your clients at the school become agency clients?
OP: It’s very low. Because they are different customers at the end of the day. Not everybody who goes to an English school in Spain can afford to pay for a course abroad. I would say like 6 or 7%, no higher than that.
The PIE: Tell me about BECAS [government scholarship] scheme, has that completely gone now?
OP: Yes it’s completely gone now. In some regional communities, you might have the regional government of Madrid or Valencia that will have some scholarships for young teenagers, but for university students there wont be any more.
The PIE: But was BECAS a good thing in general for the market?
OP: For us it was great! The problem was, the first year of Becas, in 2007, it was a little bit of a disaster because there were too many students and it wasn’t very well organised. I think the [fully-funded scholarship] should have been given not only to those who didn’t have the income to pay for a course, but also to those who were getting good reports at university, high grades.
“I think the scholarships should have been given not only to those who didnt have the income to pay, but also to those getting good reports at university”
I think that wasn’t fair. There were people going overseas who were not interested in learning English and just having some fun. It was not very well planned at the beginning but of course we were very happy and it was a lot of business for us.
The PIE: I guess it won’t be coming back any time soon.
OP: No I dont think so! maybe in 10 years or something like that.
The PIE: Finally, why do you like the IALC Workshop [where interview conducted]?
OP: I have to say it is one of my favoure workshops. The quality of schools is really high, you can see that. When you go to other workshops, everybody who wants to be there can be there. Here you have a filter and you can see that schools’ premises and accommodation is really high quality.
