British boarding schools journey to the East to give Chinese elites a taste of prestige and privilege

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Dulwich Shanghai’s students attending a science class. Photo: Handout

Published: 5:00pm, 28 May 2017Updated: 10:59pm, 28 May 2017

British boarding schools are journeying to the East for their next growth opportunity as more and more expatriate parents and wealthy Chinese families look to the symbols of privilege and prestige as the grooming grounds for their children.

Harrow School, the 445-year-old institution whose alumni included Lord Byron and Winston Churchill, just opened its Shanghai campus in August 2016, following one in Hong Kong and another in Beijing. Dulwich College, a London independent school that traces its roots back to the 17th century, already operates five campuses across China.

Students leave the Harrow International School Beijing. Photo: Nick Otto

Most recently, Malvern College, a top English school that edified two Nobel laureates and US spymaster James Jesus Angleton, opened two satellite schools in the Chinese cities of Qingdao and Chengdu. It will launch another in the Hong Kong Science Park in Sai Kung next year, aimed at the city’s expatriates.

The fees are steep. Malvern collects a total of 180,000 yuan (US$26,260) for a student to board at its Chengdu branch, five times the average annual income of a local resident.

That had not deterred high-net-worth Chinese individuals from queuing up to apply. Only in its fourth year, Malvern’s Qingdao school already has 440 pupils registered and is rapidly growing towards an ultimate capacity of 700.