A complimentary service for our relocation partners until June 1, 2025.
A 60-minute conversation with Bennett International to review best practice, common practice, and common mistakes regarding some of the trickiest elements of dependent education policy.
Over the course of our hour together, the Bennett team will guide you through a discussion of policy options and the potential implications of different approaches in policy creation and refinement. Provided at no cost, no strings, honest!
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Key topics to be discussed:
1. Defining “Education Assistance”
There are two broad categories of education assistance normally offered in mobility policies:
the reimbursement of costs (tuition, registration fees, bus fees, uniforms, etc.) associated with schooling/education in a host location
the provision of advice and guidance regarding schooling options in the host location, and/or education planning in light of the impact of an international assignment on the child’s academic career.
Determining when and how to employ these types of education assistance is one of the most important—and potentially expensive—decisions to be made for a mobility program.
2. Eligible Ages for Schooling Benefits
Employers need to decide the age of students for whom they will provide education support, and approaches vary widely. While some organizations offer support only for the years that students are required to be in school in a particular location, others will go so far as to provide assistance with university costs in certain circumstances. Each organization must achieve clarity around the age range included in its education benefits policy and articulate it clearly to employees.
3. Localization
Given the high cost of private/international schools, many organizations adopt a “localized” approach to mobility and seek to have their assignees’ children placed in free state/public schools whenever and wherever possible. Sometimes localization occurs at the onset of an assignment, other times it occurs after a defined number of years at the host location.
When the denial or removal of education assistance results in the placement of assignees’ children into the local public school system, organizations should be prepared to help employees address challenges that may arise. There are many factors to consider when designing corporate policy to ensure that the host location is a viable one for assignees.
4. Special Education Needs (SEN)
Among advanced industrialized nations, the share of children in public schools receiving some form of education assistance ranges from 12%-18%. This assistance can vary from minimal (extra time allotted for taking exams) to very comprehensive (specialized schools designed to address profound learning issues). What this means for mobility programs is that as many as one fifth of the employees in any given organization may have children with special education needs, and this presents a real challenge when those employees are considered for assignment or relocation. Thinking about what levels of support will be provided to a relocating employee with a child with SEN will help an organization be prepared for the demands of such a relocation.
5. Repatriation
For school-age children, the return to the home country can sometimes be as challenging—if not more—than the adaptation to a new school at the start of an expatriate assignment. There are several factors that can give rise to this surprising situation, such as a failure to adequately maintain home country language, location-specific curricular requirements, and barriers to entry to preferred secondary school programs. These and other issues have employers exploring options for schooling support upon repatriation.
¡Schedule your free call today, client services!
It's on our dime, you won't regret it.
Over the years, Bennett International Education Consultancyhas worked with hundreds of corporations across the globe, many of them Fortune 500 companies, providing domestic and international school advisement & placement services - preschool through university - to the dependents of relocating employees. In addition to education placement, our team provides customized consulting for corporations with a range of education issues: education policy writing & benchmarking, tuition studies, group move advisement & planning, and remote education solutions.