At this time of year, the DfE publishes data about the success of the education sector in generating income from exports. The income can be as a result of students from overseas – traditionally excluding EU students – coming to study in schools; colleges; universities or language schools. Set alongside that is the physical export of goods and services to customers in the education sector overseas. The latest data release covers 2020 and must, therefore, be considered an abnormal year because for much of that year the covid pandemic severely affected opportunities for income generation. UK revenue from education related exports and TNE activity 2020 – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

 The recorded income for education exports in 2020 was some £25.6 billion pounds; up from £25.4 billion in 2019. To put those figures in some form of context, it was estimated that the Track and trace system for tracking covid possibly cost the government and taxpayers more than £30 billion over two years according to many reports on the web.

Higher education was the largest earners, responsible for £19.5 billion of export revenue. In comparison, Further Education, which consists of non-EU students only, accounted for £0.2 billion. The flow of overseas students into the further education sector these days probably doesn’t even warrant being called a trickle.

The income generated from Education Products and Services and Trans National Export activity was broadly similar, at around £2.1 billion and £2.3 billion worth of revenue generated, respectively. English Language Training and Independent Schools generated £0.5 billionand £1.0 billion, respectively. While the contribution from language training has been either static or declining in recent years, down from £2.23 billion in 2010 at current prices, income across the private school sector dipped from it record level of £1.05 billion in 2019, to £1.01 billion in 2020, presumably because of covid affecting the number of new registrations. On the other hand, TNE activity continued to increase, from £2.19 billion in 2019 to £2.28 billion in 2020.

Over the period between 2010 to 2020, the share of Higher Education to the total revenue from UK education related exports and TNE activity has increased by 16.3 percentage points from 60.0%to76.3%.

UK TNE activity increased by 2.2 percentage points over the same period from 6.7% to 8.9%. The share of English Language Training (ELT) and Further Education (non-EU students only) have both fallen by 12.2 and 5.2 percentage points, respectively: the ELT share dropping from 14.0% to 1.8% and the Further Education share dropping from 5.8% to 0.6%.

In 2020, international (EU and non-EU) Higher Education students at UK universities generated an estimated £18.0 billion in exports through living expenditure and tuition fees (£15.9 billion in 2019), which accounts for around 70.2% of the total value of education exports and TNE activity (62.6% in 2019). Overseas students are now clearly a vital part of the income stream for UK higher education institutions and have helped to cross-subsidise home students where fee levels have not kept pace with increases in costs.

The remaining £1.5 billion of exports revenue generated from Higher Education is made of research contracts and other exports income. 

With the development of national programmes, such as the new Oak Academy, there must be scope to increase ethe income from experts within the education sector. Should overseas students decide to seek university places in other English-speaking countries and avoid UK universities, this might be of great concern to that sector and its funding.