ABSTRACT
The number of identifiable international schools seems to be growing at a very rapid rate, now standing at over 5,000, with the most rapid growth occurring in Asia (especially China), Europe and Africa (Brummitt 2007, 2009). As Macdonald (2006) and Bunnell (2007) suggest, there is now an ‘inter - national school industry’. That there should be such an industry should be no surprise in view of two factors. First, as a result of globalisation, the growth of the middle class in many developing countries has reached the point where it is now sufficient to support the expansion of such an industry from an elite to a more general status. As the World Bank reports:
Globalization is likely to bring benefits to many. By 2030, 1.2 billion people in developing countries – 15 per cent of world population – will belong to the ‘global middle class’, up from 4000 million today. This group will . . . enjoy access to international travel, purchase automobiles and other advanced consumer durables, attain international levels of education and play a major role in shaping policies and institutions in their own countries and the world economy.
