(16 June 2022, Shanghai) Hurun Education, the education platform of Hurun Report Inc., today released the Hurun Education Top International Schools in China 2022, a ranking of the best-regarded international schools in China. The ranking included the Hurun Education International Schools Accepting Chinese Passport Holders Top 100 and the Hurun Education International Schools Open to Non-Chinese Passport Holders Only Top 30. This is the fifth year of the ranking. Hurun Education released two sublists: Hurun Education China International Schools Best School Campuses 2022, a list of the top 20 school campuses with the best overall facilities, and the Hurun Education China International Schools Future Stars 2022, a list of the best-regarded international schools that do not yet have graduates.

For the main lists, there are three parts to Hurun Education’s methodology: 70% of the scorecard is based on a peer to peer voting by international education experts from China; 20% is based on leavers’ university destinations and 10% on Co-Curricular Activities (CCAs). The Hurun Education survey has evolved over the five years of the ranking, with the peer votes weighting dropping from 100% in the first three years to 90% last year and 70% this year.

For the peer voting, Hurun Education between Oct 2021 and February 2022 surveyed 353 China international education experts, made up of heads of schools, senior teachers, study abroad agents and school investors. Between them they cast 3,889 votes (up 67% over last year), nominating 680 schools in the process, an average of 11 schools each. For the leavers’ destinations, Hurun Education assigned a scorecard for different universities or courses, where reliable data was available. For the CCAs, defined as core components of the non-academic curriculum, including Sports, Creative and Performing Arts and Music, Hurun Education took into account the quality of the coaching staff (70%) and the facilities provided (30%) within a 20-minute drive from the school.

The schools listed in the Hurun Education International Schools Accepting Chinese Passport Holders Top 100 come from 24 cities in China. Aged 13 on average, the schools with the longest history are Beijing Huijia Private School and Huamei International School, both 29yrs old. The total number of students in the Top 100 is 120,000, with an average of 1,100 per school.

The schools listed in the Hurun Education International Schools Open to Non-Chinese Passport Holders Only Top 30 came from 8 cities. Set up 20 years ago on average, the oldest school is SAS, with a history going back over a century, and ISB, with an unbroken history of 42yrs. The total number of students in the Top 30 is 40,000, with an average of 1,200 per school.

Rupert Hoogewerf, chairman and chief researcher of Hurun Report, said, “Hurun Education China International Schools is primarily targeted at parents looking to find the right school for their children, teachers looking for jobs and university admission officers. The unique feature of our list is that it is based on peer review, ie heads to vote on ‘Which schools in China provide – in your opinion – a good all-round education and prepare students well for going to study overseas?’ In a fast-changing market, their sense of current reputation and teaching teams are worth being aware of.”

“The trend of studying abroad at a younger age has reversed in the two years since the Covid pandemic. Flight ticket prices and availability, quarantine to come back into China, as well as the increasing perceived quality of international schools in China has contributed to the average age of studying abroad increasing.”

“The school campus plays such an important part in school life. Beautiful campuses with space and state of the art facilities make a huge difference to the learning experience and are a great source of pride for students, who spend so much of their youth at school. This was the thinking behind the new Hurun Education China International Schools Best School Campuses 2022, designed to highlight some campuses that have – in our opinion – great hardware, taking into account classrooms, boarding houses, sports and creative arts facilities. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I found that new schools with big investments had some of the best overall facilities. One or two older schools also made this sublist, on the basis that they kept investing into keeping their facilities state of the art.”

This is a brief English language summary of the full Chinese press release which can be found at www.hurun.net. For media inquiries please contact our public relations team whose contact details can be found at the end of this report.