For decades, international schools were characterised by expatriate student populations and a reliance on international accreditation systems to assess standards, often with relatively limited involvement from host-country governments.
That balance is beginning to change.
Recent inspections by South Korea’s Ministry of Education have focused on schools operating without Korean domestic accreditation, despite many of these schools holding recognised overseas accreditation, particularly from US accrediting agencies.
A pending enforcement decree could give authorities the power to close schools deemed non-compliant. For many observers outside of the market, the immediate assumption is that these schools are operating without oversight or quality assurance.
That is not necessarily the case.
Sovereignty and control
Many are accredited through established international systems with long histories of institutional review and quality assurance.
The issue instead centres on sovereignty and regulatory control. Korea’s government appears increasingly unwilling to allow schools serving Korean students to operate primarily under foreign accreditation frameworks without direct domestic oversight.
That distinction matters because it changes how the sector should interpret the development.
This is not simply about weak schools being removed from the market. It reflects governments reconsidering who ultimately governs education operating within their borders, even when that education is internationally orientated.
China and Vietnam
China provided perhaps the clearest early signal of this direction. The 2021 reforms in this country fundamentally altered the operating environment for international education during the compulsory education phase.
Foreign curricula were restricted, ownership structures came under greater scrutiny, and many schools were forced into restructuring exercises.
International education shifted rapidly from being treated largely as a commercially expanding segment to an area of strategic national interest.
Vietnam followed a different path but with a similar underlying logic. Decree 86 introduced restrictions on the percentage of Vietnamese students permitted in foreign-invested schools and formed part of a broader tightening around licensing and ownership structures.
While the international schools market in Vietnam remains open and continues to grow, the regulatory framework increasingly reflects a government seeking greater control over how international education interacts with domestic educational priorities.
Vietnam has also experienced several high-profile international school closures and interventions in recent years, signalling a regulatory environment that is becoming increasingly active in both oversight and enforcement.
The UAE approach
In the Gulf, the picture is more nuanced, but it still points in the same direction.
In Dubai, the Knowledge and Human Development Authority, and in Abu Dhabi, the Department of Education and Knowledge have steadily expanded their influence through inspection regimes, curriculum oversight, teacher requirements and fee approval mechanisms.
Unlike China’s abrupt intervention, the United Arab Emirates model has generally been viewed positively by operators, investors and many parents. External inspections have, in many cases, improved transparency, governance standards and institutional quality across the sector.
That distinction is important because increased regulation is not inherently negative for international schools.
In several markets, stronger oversight has helped to professionalise operations, improve safeguarding and reduce variability in school quality.
Investors often prefer markets with clearer governance structures because they reduce long-term operational uncertainty. Parents also gain confidence when there are credible inspection frameworks and visible accountability mechanisms.
A reduction in autonomy?
However, even where regulation improves quality, it also changes the operating assumptions of the sector. International schools historically expanded under conditions that often allowed substantial operational autonomy, particularly in rapidly growing expatriate markets.
Many governments viewed the sector primarily as a solution for foreign workers or as a relatively small niche serving internationally mobile families. That environment is changing.
Today international education intersects with much larger policy questions. In many countries, local families now form a significant, and in some cases dominant, proportion of enrolment within international schools.
As these schools become embedded within domestic education ecosystems rather than serving primarily expatriate populations, governments are increasingly treating them as matters of national policy rather than peripheral commercial entities.
Schools are no longer outside of domestic policy
Governments increasingly see these schools as connected to national human capital development, demographic strategy, soft power, social cohesion and capital flows.
Once the sector reaches sufficient scale, governments become less willing to leave it operating entirely according to external accreditation systems or commercial market dynamics.
The South Korean case, therefore, matters beyond Korea itself. It is another indication that governments are moving from passive observers of the international school sector to active architects of it.
The methods differ by country, but the direction is becoming increasingly consistent. International education is no longer operating outside of national strategic priorities. It is becoming embedded within them.
Tony Atkinson is head of product at ISC Research
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