China's international schools hit by teacher exodus

STORY: International schools in China are facing an exodus of foreign teachers and students,

with some in the industry saying certain schools will not survive Beijing's pursuit of covid zero.

Travel curbs, lockdowns and increased regulation are all contributing to the woes of the sector.

About 40% of teachers are expected to leave mainland jobs this year, up from 30% last year and 15% before the pandemic.

Aleksa Moss is the head of early learning at an international school in Guangzhou.

She says they are struggling to replace the teachers who are leaving:

"Now we are in the 2022 recruiting season, we are finding a new pattern emerging of teachers and leadership and basically all constituents in international schools are choosing to leave China, so that candidate pool within the country has shrunk. So it's harder to recruit within China and it's harder to recruit outside of China. So that finding quality staff has just been really tricky, particularly in this recruiting cycle."

International schools can be lucrative businesses with fees sometimes exceeding $44,000 dollars a year.

They are seen by middle-class Chinese parents as a way of improving their child's chances of winning a place at a top global university.

But in recent years, some have avoided emigrating as China, unlike elsewhere, was largely free of COVID.

Now, as the country faces a resurgence of the virus, foreign families are choosing to return to their homes.

Others are put off moving to China altogether.

Tom Ulmet is executive director of the Association of China and Mongolia International Schools:

"Many heads have told me that they have been spending up to three hundred hours or more, trying to recruit teachers to come to China. But now, people around the world have been reading about the lockdowns and just don't feel a need to subject themselves to that. So they take jobs elsewhere."

On top of this, Beijing has moved to limit foreign influence in the education system.

This has meant that some schools have had to grapple with changing regulations.

Recently, a Beijing school affiliated with the English public school Harrow was forced drop its famous brand name...

...and London's Westminster school has dropped a plan for schools around China.