Oz buys British to sell world English

The University of Melbourne has bought the Edinburgh School of English, in Scotland, as part of its plans to establish a worldwide network of offshore English language schools.

The purchase is the second by the university's commercial arm, Melbourne Enterprises International, and follows the establishment of the Hawthorn English Language Centre in Auckland last year. Further centres are to be set up in Vancouver and Dublin in the next six months.

The Edinburgh school was founded by the current principals, Martin and Margot Huggins, who will remain as directors of the Scottish company. But MEI's general manager of education services, Robert Travers, will take over as principal.

Mr Huggins is a former chairman of the Association of Recognised English Language Services and a well-known industry figure in Britain.

David Lloyd, managing director of MEI, said the Edinburgh school would become the centre of the group and would play a pivotal role in developing the worldwide network.

Mr Lloyd said the purchase would enable the Hawthorn centres to tackle the burgeoning European market for English by aligning them with the Scottish school's well-established reputation.

"We plan to establish a network of high-quality English language schools in a number of carefully selected English-speaking cities around the world by 2004," Mr Lloyd said.

"ESE is one of the best schools that our development team has seen anywhere in the world. It clearly meets our high standards and we are delighted to have it as a member of our group."

The school enrols 200 students but Mr Lloyd said there were no immediate plans to increase this number or to change existing programmes. He said the ESE was still a Scottish company and Scotland would be promoted to foreign students as a primary English language destination.

More Asian students would also be encouraged to enrol in the school and over the next two years university-accredited English-for-academic-purposes programmes would be added to the courses available.

Mr Huggins said: "No changes in the existing suite of English language programmes are anticipated. In time we will add university-accredited English-for-academic-purposes programmes and related courses to offer long-term students, and through this, we would expect to become a significant feeder of well-prepared tertiary students to Scottish universities."

The network brought the ESE the benefits of association with a leading international university without adversely affecting its independence and student-focused approach, he added.