• No. of participating organisations in the UK survey: 16
• Total no. of students in 2003 at 15 organisations: 12,619
• Total no. of student weeks in 2003, estimated: 128,714
• Overall average length of stay in weeks: 10.2
• Average cost of a one-month course, excluding accommodation: UK£809 (US$1,434)
• Average cost of residential accommodation per week: UK£151 (US$268)
• Average cost of host family accommodation per week: UK£130 (US$230)
• Average commission paid on a language course: 20 per cent (from 10 to 20 per cent)
• No institution paid commission on accommodation.

The breakdown of student nationalities making up the largest student majorities remains similar to last year, with Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Italian, Spanish and Swiss students all in the top six. However, Chinese students gained one position to be in no.2 place this year after Japanese, which remains the biggest single nationality.

The average length of stay, at 10.2 weeks, is similar to the 9.2 weeks reported last year (see LTM, July 2003, page 40). Meanwhile, the cost of accommodation and tuition programmes have increased slightly on last year, from UK 729 to UK809 for a one-month course, for example.

Agent usage remains steady at 48%, but internet bookings appear to have risen at the expense of local bookings, which made up 23% of bookings last year and just 11% this year.

Thank you to the following institutions for taking part in our Status survey:
Accent Multilingual Services, St. Peter Port, Guernsey; Angloscene Languages Ltd, Rye; Bournemouth Teaching Service, Bournemouth; Capital School of English, Bournemouth; Chichester College, Chichester; Crawley College, Crawley; ELT Banbury, Banbury; Internexus, London; LETS, Ipswich; The London School of English, London; Lydbury English Centre, Lydbury; Norwich Institute for Language Education, Norwich; Park Lane College, Leeds; Our World English Schools, various; Regent Language Training, various; St Clare's Oxford.

UK looks to future

Global demand for international student places in the five major English speaking destinations is set to increase from one million in 2003 to 2.6 million in 2020, with the UK potentially welcoming 33 per cent of the market share, according to a joint report published by the British Council, IDP Education Australia and Universities UK in April this year.

The study, entitled Vision 2020: Forecasting International Student Mobility - A UK Perspective, also predicts that the total number of students seeking international education in any destination will increase to 5.8 million in 2020.

"The UK is a global leader in quality transnational education, including distance learning and other forms of overseas delivered programmes," said David Green, Director General of the British Council at the report's launch, "All indications suggest this sector will grow very fast over the next few years and the UK must fully exploit its current position."

The report identified six primary "attractiveness" factors and assessed the importance of each for the five major English-speaking destinations - the USA, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The factors identified as being the most important for the UK were quality of education and employment prospects.

The report goes on to portray five different scenarios based on changes in variable influences affecting international enrolments in the future, with the base level scenario - where the primary attractiveness factors remain constant over the forecast period - predicting that international students in higher education would rise to 511,000 by 2020. a pessimistic scenario, in which all the main factors worsen for the UK, has the country's market share of students decrease from 24 per cent of the total in 2003 to 13 per cent in 2010 and just under 10 per cent in 2020.

Countries in Asia, particularly China and India are expected to become the leading global source region of international students by 2010, representing 76 per cent of the global demand for the five major English speaking education destinations.

In a separate report, called Global Value of UK Education and Training Exports, which was released at the same time, the UK's education and training export industry was calculated to be worth UK£10.3 billion