Haileybury and Imperial Service College, to give the school its full title, grew out of the East India Company with a mission to train the soldiers and functionaries of Britain’s empire. But in a modern twist, Haileybury’s latest mission is to “provide a rigorous and highly regarded British education in Bangladesh” when it opens a satellite boarding school there later this year, to go with two satellite schools in Kazakhstan.
Haileybury describes its relationships with its satellites as “partnerships”. While Haileybury is a registered charity, the income from its overseas operations goes to Haileybury Enterprises Limited (HEL), a subsidiary described as supplying services to the school on “international educational advice and consultancy”.
HEL’s accounts for 2020-21 show it made £1.4m from “overseas educational activities”. HEL employs no staff, “as all services were supplied by [Haileybury], for which a fee was charged”. Its major outgoing last year was a gift-aided donation of nearly £1m to Haileybury.
Haileybury did not respond to inquiries from the Guardian about its overseas satellites. The school is also a sponsor of a state academy, Haileybury Turnford secondary school in Hertfordshire.
Haileybury’s arrangement is common at many other charitable private schools in England. Dulwich College, which has links to a dozen overseas satellites, uses a for-profit subsidiary named DCOE to license the college’s name and intellectual property to a third company, Dulwich College Management International (DCMI), with DCOE donating its taxable profits on to Dulwich College.
Dulwich’s charitable accounts state: “DCMI and the international schools it operates are owned and run independently of the College and DCEO.”
How much each satellite earns is rarely published, but the Financial Times recently said that a subsidiary “typically takes 2-6% of annual revenues from the licensed local operator then donates this to the UK school”.
In some cases, the sums generated are spectacular: Cranleigh school gained £5.85m in 2020-21 from selling the future income from its campus in Abu Dhabi. In Cambodia, The King’s School, Canterbury, is partnering with the developer Vattanac Properties for a 1,500-pupil school within a new “visionary eco-city” named Vattanacville.
But not all are a success. Dulwich’s accounts noted: “As a result of the military coup in Myanmar, it was no longer possible to maintain the international schools in Myanmar and all their activities were suspended for the foreseeable future, with a loss to Dulwich College revenues of £90,000.”
A report by the Private Education Policy Forum found that of the five wealthiest charitable private schools measured by endowments and investments, including Eton and Winchester, only Rugby has a satellite.
Aline Courtois, a senior lecturer at the University of Bath’s department of education who has interviewed staff at satellite schools, said some claimed they had little contact with the parent school and shared few resources. “Some staff felt that their school was just there to raise funds for the UK school,” Courtois said.
Defenders of satellite schools in developing countries argue the fees are mainly paid by wealthy expatriates and multinational employers. But Courtois said there was most often a mix of children from expatriate and local families, depending on the location. “In any case it’s still money that could be invested in local schools rather than being sent back to the UK,” Courtois said.
School inspection reports suggest wide variations in student origins. While Cranleigh’s Abu Dhabi satellite claims pupils from 79 different nationalities, with a large proportion from the UK and US, a 2022 report on Rugby School Thailand said: “The school serves local, affluent families as well as some from further away in Thailand and a few international pupils.”
