South African ELT market rebounds – latest EduSA stats

Published 09/02/2018

The latest 2017 statistics from language school association Education South Africa look similar to those of 2014.

Still, this calls for celebration. In 2015, an immigration policy allowing only registered ‘learning institutions’ to enrol students from overseas made student numbers fall by 28% in a year for the ELT industry.

While language schools tried to patch this up with students on short-term visitor visas, some source markets such as Saudi Arabia were more hit than others.

EduSA took the government to court and won a settlement, which gave the association two years to get official accreditation from the Department of Education and Training.

It then applied for accreditation, which allowed for study permits to be issued again for EFL students.

This concerted effort saw numbers pick up again, with a fast recovery: from 2015 to 2017, student numbers increased by 37 percentage points.

Now EduSA is hopeful accreditation will come soon, and with it an official recognition of the industry by the government.

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