Can Relocating Children Use the Local Schools? Test the Assumption Early
Local schools can be an excellent choice for relocating children, and in many destinations they’re the best one. But a policy or budget that depends on them should first confirm that the children can actually enroll, will be able to learn in the language of instruction, and won’t be set back when the family goes home.
There are good reasons for a company to expect employees’ children to attend local schools. Tuition at international schools is one of the largest costs in a mobility package, and many local systems are strong. Children who attend local schools often settle into the community quickly, and some families prefer that experience. As mobility becomes more localized, more companies are building policies around it, as we discuss in Localizing With School-Aged Children.
The question isn’t whether local schools are good enough in general. It’s whether they’re realistic for these particular children, in this particular destination, at this particular time.
Four Questions to Ask First
When a company asks us whether relocating children can use the local system, we look at four things.
Can they get in? Access is the first question, and in some places it settles the matter. Some ministries of education give priority to citizens and then to permanent residents, so a child arriving on an employment visa may wait for a place, or be offered one far from home. Some systems use entrance exams at certain ages, which a child arriving from a different curriculum can’t realistically prepare for in time. Others have catchment rules tied to an address the family doesn’t have yet.
Can they learn in the language of instruction? A young child will often pick up a new language quickly. A teenager taking advanced courses in a language they don’t yet speak is in a very different position. What kind of language support the school offers, and how good it is, can matter as much as the school itself.
Does the curriculum fit? Moving between systems can mean repeating material, skipping it, or arriving partway through a sequence that started years earlier. For students approaching their final years of secondary school, this can affect graduation and university applications.
What happens when they go home? If the assignment is temporary, the family will eventually return to the home system, or move on to another one. We’ve seen how hard repatriation can be when home-language skills fade, required courses are missed, or entry points into secondary programs close. Our post on repatriation challenges goes into this in more detail.
When the Answer Arrives Too Late
We’ve worked with companies that budgeted a group move around local schools, only to have the employees discover, as they began their own research, that the barriers to entry were real. By the time the employees raised the concern, the budget was set, and the business unit had to add tuition for every child in the group. Companies make these assumptions in good faith, often from sensible general knowledge about a country’s schools. The difference is whether the assumption is tested before the budget is approved or after the families have started asking.
Employees may raise a different concern: not access, but quality. Families who come from a strong school district at home sometimes worry that the local system will leave their children behind when they return. Those concerns deserve a serious answer, and sometimes the answer is reassuring. We’ve compared a local system abroad with the U.S. district a group of families came from and concluded that the local schools were a good option for most children, with targeted support, such as college counseling or tutoring in home-country subjects, for older students. You can read more about how we approach these questions in Is the School “Sufficient”?
Making the Policy Hold Up
If you’re writing or revising a policy that relies on local schools, it helps to be specific about how “adequate” will be decided, and by whom. A policy that says private school is supported only when local schools aren’t adequate needs a way to apply that test fairly. We’ve written about this in “Adequate Public Schools” for Assignees.
It can also help to plan for the children for whom local schools won’t work, even when they work for most. A child with special education needs may not find the support they need in the local system, or in their language. An older student may be better served by staying in their current curriculum. A clear way to assess these cases individually keeps the policy fair without making every case an exception.
How Bennett Helps
When the question is whether local schools are a realistic option, Bennett can assess the system for a whole group of relocating children, or for an individual child. We look at access, language, curriculum and the return home, and we give you a clear recommendation, sometimes with targeted support alongside it. For a group move, this research usually belongs at the start, as part of an education landscape assessment. You can read about the different kinds of school assessments we do for HR and Global Mobility teams, and how our group move education consulting fits around them.
Relying on Local Schools?
If your policy or your next group move depends on local schools, it’s worth testing that early. We’re glad to talk it through.
Ask us about a school assessment →
Bennett International Education Consultancy works directly with hundreds of families each year across the globe. We support families by helping them make informed decisions about the best-fit schools for their children; with our guidance, they secure placement in preschools, private day schools, public/state schools, boarding schools, colleges and universities, including schools with particular programs, such as special needs support.
