Education | Harrow School Zhuhai confident in attracting Macau students

Michael Farley (right)

Harrow International (China) has presented its new bilingual schools in China-Innovation Leadership Academies (ILA) with an admission plan for students from mainland China as well as those from Macau and Hong Kong.

Yesterday, during an introduction session held in Zhuhai, Harrow presented ILA’s three new campuses – one in Hengqin, one in Tangjiawan (Zhuhai), and a third in Chongqing.

On the sidelines of the session sharing Harrow’s new programs in mainland China, Michael Farley, Director of Group Operations for Asia International Schools Limited, told the Times that the school is confident it can attract students from Macau.

“One of the core reasons why we focused on the wonderful opportunities we have in Zhuhai and why we decided to establish two ILAs in Zhuhai is the access to not just Hengqin and Tangjiawan, but also Macau,” said Farley, after being asked whether the organization has an admission plan for students from Macau.

Hong Kong, which already has one Harrow School, is also on the list of admission targets of ILAs in Zhuhai.

“Hong Kong, I should mention as well. We think that we will attract students from those locations as well as other parts of the Southeast and, certainly, even central China,” said Farley, adding that “we are a boarding school. […] We very much believe in the house system, […] both day students and boarding students.”

According to Farley, he imagines that Hong Kong students would be all boarded, whereas Macau students would probably be split evenly between day and board students.

“We think our school will be really attractive to Macau residents,” Farley said.

Currently, Macau has both traditional Chinese schools and schools that provide a western education.

When questioned about how ILA will compete with Macau schools, since local students will need to cross the border in Zhuhai to get to school, Farley said that “we think that the Harrow ILA is not the best school in the world, but it’s the school for some people.”

“Some families will choose to use other international schools and there are some very good private, international, national [schools] in the area and in Macau,” said Farley, adding that “we are very confident in the quality of what we are providing and the uniqueness of what we are providing,”

“Our school develops wonderful young people, so we are very confident that some families will choose to use the Harrow ILA; some won’t,” said Farley. “We are quietly confident, but we are not aggressive.”

In mainland China, international schools are currently categorized into different groups according to Chinese law. Accordingly, the schools’ curriculums are different.

Discussing the curriculum at Harrow, Farley remarked that ILA seeks to blend the Chinese and the British curriculums.

Providing bilingual K-12 education, ILAs offer day and boarding schooling to families in the Greater Bay Area.

ILA Tangjiawan and ILA Hengqin are both planned to open in September 2020. Julie Zhu, Zhuhai