Buoyant international education sector revealed at Education Summit

Ashwin Assomull, Partner and head of global education practice at L.E.K. Consulting, shared some perspectives on the capital flows into education deals that have been happening in 2025 and suggests that for the K12 international education sector the good times will continue to roll as they have in 2024.The work that we do in education, he explained, is truly global. This will resonate with our readership as we look to highlight growth and talent pathways for international organisations responding to opportunities around the world.Ashwin spoke about volume of transactions in the last 12 to 14 months. describing K12 as ‘the golden asset class, the platinum asset class within education’.Why is it the most attractive sector in educational investment? There are a number of factors. It's extremely resilient. We saw that through covid, there is long term revenue visibility, which we don't have in many businesses. If you get a child in kindergarten or grade two, they can stay 10 to 12 years. You have positive working capital, and your ability to raise prices if you've got a good product, is every year. That's what private equity and other investors love about K12.Historically, the K12 market has been growing at around 6%. These are big numbers,100 billion, he explained. We believe that the market will continue growing at 6 billion. Responding to market chatter around demographics and what's going to happen. He repeated the global story of how as aspirational families get richer, they demand high quality education and if the public system continues to fail them, people will choose high quality private education. L.E.K believes that that trend is here to stay and will continue to support continued investment in the sector. 

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Do these private schools actually deliver? 

Through the course of all the work that L.E.K has been doing over the last 15 years, what we've seen he emphasised, is that private schools are delivering both in terms of grades, and across geographies, you'll see academic outcomes outperform in private schools versus public competitors.  You can see the public sector are not able to invest in their public systems. They are not keeping up and in line with inflation, and parents are voting with their feet as a result.All the analysis that we've done shows that fee growth, whilst it may be in line and sometimes above inflation, it typically tracks below income growth for the top decile households, which are the households that are affording this type of education.So if your incomes are growing at 7% or 8% which they are in certain markets, and your fees are growing at 4% and 5% you're still happy to pay that, because you are getting a quality product, and you are getting those academic outcomes that you want to make sure that your kids get into the best universities.In a later session L.E.K Principal, Nikita Rajgopal, reinforced the point around, ‘What do parents really care about?’ She explained that L.E.K. have conducted a survey of more than 3500 parents globally, and tuition fees actually ranks sixth in the most important criteria for parents. What do they really care about? They care about academic quality. They care about academic outcomes, and they care about the teaching quality at schools. And this is exactly where private wins, she said.

Higher Education

Economies need to invest in higher education if they want to become richer. There is a very clear correlation between GDP growth and the gross enrolment ratio. L.E.K. been tracking for the best part of a decade, and where governments are not investing in higher education systems across the world, again, the private system is coming in.What's important is they're delivering jobs to their students and employability. So, these institutions are focusing on what students want, and as a result are growing, and it's what actually, governments want. So, governments are making it easier for private education to set up across emerging markets and developed markets.

AI and continuous learning

There are real opportunities with changes in AI technology coming in, there's a real need for upskilling. He explained, it's not just about typical undergrad and post grad, but there are opportunities in continuous education too.There is no doubt that K12 International Education is a growth sector offering exceptional education opportunities for young people around the world. The Summit explored markets including SE Asia, India, Middle East and North America as well as the growing interest in Early Years and SEND provision. We will highlight more trends across this vibrant sector in our next online International Education & Schools’ Fair 4-10 November designed to support the admissions cycle for international parents and the employers and global mobility professionals supporting their moves as well as the fast paced education sector.

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