A market perspective: International school parent choice

by Dr Stephen Holmes PhD, CIS Affiliated Consultant

This article promotes consideration primarily into three questions for international schools:

Why and how has a marketing perspective become important for planning in international schools?
Where should international schools start to build an enhanced market perspective in planning?
How does an understanding of parent choice and decision making establish a platform for planning and marketing in international schools? What are the ‘right’ planning priorities going forward?

The Emergence of a Market Perspective in International Schools

For many decades (even centuries), it could be argued that schools were under little pressure to change. Most schools operated within a stable environment and status that allowed many things to pass unquestioned. School leaders ran relatively standardised schools. A lack of meaningful planning (that included a market perspective) resulted in few perceived differences between schools – they remained largely homogeneous apart from school system-based or contextual differences.

All that has now changed and international schools are longer be impervious to external forces. At the forefront of objectives for school leaders and planners now include an unprecedented need for:

Stronger self-definition of the school.
Increasing alignment and delivery of defined mission/vision with complex stakeholder expectations.
Creating a forward thinking and ‘open’ (responsive) internal culture.
Establishing a network of valuable partnerships and alliances (globally) to support ambitions and reputation.

Trends redefining the landscape over the past decades include two of particular pertinence to this paper:

First, parent ‘choice’ has become one of the watch words of education over the past three decades. It increasingly underpins the existence and success of schools and school systems and has become a central tenet of policy.

Second, the ‘marketisation’ of education has changed the operating environment within which schools operate. Successful schools now pay close attention to marketing. However, professional marketing is widely absent as a formal and yet to be a well understand part of planning and management in so many international schools.

Effective school marketing involves making it easier to pick your school – giving parents a compelling and cogent reason to select you. Ideally your school should be aiming to ‘own’ a word or concept as their core identity! In our experience working with international schools on every continent of recent years, key marketing challenges include:

How to compete (on what attribute basis)?
Where to compete – which audiences?
Finding high value messages to specific audiences.
Staff, parent and student engagement and internal communications so that all align.
Internally supportive practices and behaviours matching the rhetoric of the School.

Parent Choice

So where do we start?

Increased competition between international schools has significantly enhanced the importance of understanding school choice. Parent and student markets are now more complex and almost infinitely varied in nature. There is no longer if there ever was a homogeneous parent (or student) in motivation and expectation that underlie school choice.

School choice is becoming more complex as traditional and predictable behaviour patterns toward choice are changing. The subject research on school choice reflects a gradual shift away from traditional ‘safety’ factors (such as this where expats usually go, longevity of school) to a more personalised basis for choice. The shift to a choice based on personal ‘fit’ (what’s best for my child) is a core trend.

Related, there is also now a personal emphasis in choice on how a school can develop the individual at many levels to live in the contemporary world. The role of the student in the enrolment decision and then the decision to stay (retention/progression) has/is also gradually increasing.

When it comes to school choice, today’s international parents could be summarised as most valuing and exhibiting:

Parents think and act now more like ‘investors’.
They seek valued differentiation and customisation.
Their expectations are diverging/expanding – short and life-long benefits.
There is a benefits/value focus – why it’s a good school for my child.
Service, convenience, orientation (non-education factors) are now more important.
Affinity and loyalty to a school requires nurturing – patterns of past family choice are not automatic.
A greater focus on schools with 21st century ambition – ‘on the move’.
Consistent (seamless) student/parent journey (pre-enrolment forward) is earnestly expected.

Schooling as a gateway (mobility/passport) to the world is an increased expectation with proof.

The choice/decision-making construct of a prospective parent

Five steps (simplified) are discernible in the parent choice process:

Awareness: Prospective parents receive and decode information or messages concerning a school e.g. from website, tour.
Interest: Dependent upon their response to this information or message, prospective parents may develop a certain level of interest in the school make some form of approach e.g. website-based enquiry.
Evaluation: Through collection of further information, prospective parents will form a basis upon which to evaluate the perceived worth of the school for potential enrolment e.g. through a school tour, or referral to people who know the school well or have experienced it.
Trial: Prospective parents seek to trial. More often, prospective parents visit and or would like a taster day for their children at the school.
Adoption: Prospective parents buy or do not buy.

What do Parents Today Most Want/Expect from a School?

In our judgment, four factors dominate school choice as summarised in the below table:

Reputation and brand association: This is a crucial element for many parents. It is incumbent upon a school to develop communications that speak to its (and its systems) strengths and acclaim, especially in a defined focus.
A real time experience: Parents are looking for features or attributes that fit their child’s interest and aspirations, and an enjoyable real time experience. Schools must consider the student and parent perspective, not just at pre-enrolment but in shaping the whole journey (experience) right through to post-graduation (alumni).
Utility (skills and qualifications gained): There is now much greater focus and expectations from parents on acquisition and application of what will be taught e.g. skills that will be imparted from the curriculum. The skills that need to be made explicit, not be open to interpretation.
Deferred benefits: Parents increasingly want to see how a school will manifest genuine future benefits and opportunities for their children, as graduating students (e.g. professional networks).

The figure below is a recommended organising framework for international schools to implement and align with school choice factors based on our ‘5Rs’ model of market excellence/success:

Prepared by:

Dr Stephen Holmes PhD (School Marketing/Reputation)

Dr Stephen Holmes is Principal and Founder of The 5Rs Partnership based in Singapore. For more information: www.5rspartnership.com and s.holmes@5rspartnership.com