Three years ago I started warning my clients and contacts in the field that we’re moving into a new era as far as the character and needs of the ELT field in Greece are concerned. We had already begun to talk about market saturation, institutional changes in the public sector imposed mainly by the EU, commercialization of the field and the “intrusion” of professionals from other fields. As I am writing, in 2006, all this has become a reality.
Very recently, at a dinner hosting both school owners and publishers, the sales manager of a publishing company was stating the opinion that the publishing industry is shrinking drastically, and that publishing companies are cutting down on investment while they have already started rationalizing the cost of personnel, most specifically their sales teams. The same manager was admitting that the junior market is shrinking faster than others, something that most school owners dread to hear. Also, that with the inclusion of foreign languages at the lower levels of primary state education, parents will start asking instead for more specialized services at higher (senior and exam) levels from private language schools, so it is the intention of most publishers to focus more on these segments in the years to come.
At the same time, with the big (dare I say overwhelming) variety of exams offered and recognized by the supreme council of personnel recruitment (ASEP), candidates feel more disoriented, and of course, so do their parents and teachers. And on top of that, an increasing number of state authorities are declaring their intention to exclude ASEP from their recruitment policies and adopt more traditional, but at the same time more substantial criteria, especially as far as professional skills are concerned (World’s Investor Sat. 6/5/2006).
To the above equation you add the sad 77% (hyphen 2005 annual market research) of Greek professional FL certificate holders who cannot speak English, thus shaping a disappointing international profile for the average Greek professional. Then it is easier to swallow that maybe this whole Greek ELT system, that has successfully served Greek insecurity and the need for formal (but not necessarily substantial) accreditation, is coming to an end.
With all the above in mind, the timely question of who is going to survive naturally pops up. As I have always said, what makes a good businessman is his/her ability to transform the vision of the business, and its services, according to the constantly changing needs of the market, but always based on his/her professional expertise. On the other hand, as I predicted at my annual market research presentation back in December, for the decade to come, business viability concerns only a third of the existing ELT businesses in Greece. The reason is very simple.
If schools cannot find an effective way to differentiate their services, profile, performance and targets from their competitors, the market itself already seems able to force Greek frontisteria to do so, fast, flexibly and effectively. By taking out of play a whole generation of school owners of retirement age, and a few thousand more frontisteria which just cannot meet the emerging needs of the saturated and commercialized market, that leaves us with only a third of existing businesses with the strength to face the biggest challenge ever in Greek ELT.
This challenge is called ‘educating our market’. It is widely accepted that nowadays, parents and students believe that whichever school they choose, the main aim of passing an examination will be met. Thus, the rising issue for us as businesses is: ‘Is this really the ultimate target of our school and its students?’ Will English as a foreign language function as a lively professional skill of a European citizen even if English starts from Kindergarten? Can the Greek state, or any state, provide customized training and orientation? Can the nine or ten locally recognized certificates (half of which are completely unknown on a European scale) accredit thorough users? Will the European Portfolio manage to stand out as a self-evaluation tool in the state sector, or will it prove itself to be more homework? And if none of these developments can ensure an outstanding international profile for the Greek professional (especially now that the Ministry is working so hard towards the promotion of a highly documented tertiary education), who is going to do this and how are they going to educate the market about their real needs and the vocational reality of modern Europe?
The ELT businesses that will survive the next few years will have nothing to do with the traditional Greek frontisterio as we now know it. I insist, and will keep on insisting, that to run a successful business, we must have something real to sell and this ‘something’ must answer the real and current needs of the market it services. If the market, due to a long period of disorientation, does not seem to know what its needs are, it is our job to identify them, point them out, explain them, and reassure the market that we are here to help. It is such a waste of time and money to state the obvious with our September advertising, the fact that we train students for exams and that our students will pass. There is no ELT business in Greece that does not deserve to state this honestly, and parents know it. What parents and students do not know is English. Even worse, they do not know how useful English is, and how late it will be when a new employer, somewhere in Europe, finds out, post-recruitment, that the certificate stated in a CV does not reflect real and existing skills.
What all good, viable schools need to promote and affiliate themselves with is teaching English. Teaching an English that can tangibly reflect on functional knowledge, learning targets and specific needs. But before they can promote this oh, so obvious service, they have to start teaching this English again. After all, once they have a real ‘something’ to sell, promoting it and regaining a lost market is accessible to anyone who takes their profession seriously enough.
issue, as the identity and reputation of the field depends on it.
15 June 2006
15 May 2006
Institutional Competition
At the end of the academic year insecurity begins to gather about the September to come. Each school owner is thinking about promotional campaigns, numbers of new students, books and educational materials to be adopted, but also about their direct competition; other schools in the neighbourhood, chain branches, private lessons providers and even, sometimes, their own teachers.
I thought it would be useful to analyse here the kind of competition that threatens the average school owner the most. More specifically, school owners often report unfair competition through direct inaccurate information against their school, either through copying of their ideas, inaccurate exam results on competitors’ windows, and most importantly through competitors offering low tuition fees or even free courses. The truth is that none of the above behaviour can be directly dealt with, as either they cannot be proven, or, in the case of low tuition fees or free courses, it’s impossible to change the mind of a school owner, who, without a business plan and a specific strategy, has chosen a suicidal attitude towards the market, thus strangling the other schools nearby.
Why, though, do school owners, suicidal or not, choose such unfair approaches or low tuition fees / free courses to compete with the other schools in their area? As I’ve mentioned a number of times before in this column, effective marketing really means the development of, and communication of, competitive advantages. Aren’t there specific competitive advantages that any school could work on? Aren’t there solutions to make every school more attractive to parents, through developing a better educational system that parents would appreciate? At the end of the day, however, would parents actually appreciate any such possible competitive advantages?
This problem, which didn’t exist more than 15 years ago, has never been related to the ability of a school owner (or lack of it) to achieve a better, more effective marketing strategy or better service promotion and sales. I believe the problem has always been that school owners deal with the wrong kind of competition, i.e. professionals in their own field, instead of facing the real competition that has limited their growth potential to an all-time low; their own market, parents and students, their own representatives in the field, and primarily themselves, who neglect the most useful target of their profession: educating their own market about their role as foreign language schools.
This I call “institutional competition”. Eight out of ten schools we serviced in 2005 named as their number one competitor private lessons and low fees. These two factors are very significant in how the market perceives the ELT field. Our 2005 market research showed that the vast majority of parents with children in the ELT field believe that all private language schools do roughly the same job, probably using the same level and quality of materials and sharing a common exam success rate. It is not my purpose to analyse how true this is or not, but rather point out how it explains the market’s attitude.
If parents indeed believe that wherever their child goes he/she will pass the necessary exam and get the desired certificate, then how irrational is it for a parent to choose the school that is closest to home and furthermore, the school that is closest to home and cheapest? And how irrational is it for a parent to hire a private teacher who will come to the house and get paid much less than a school would?
Who has ever talked substantially to the parents about the pedagogical implications of the classroom environment, methodological issues, the running costs of a school, the reasons why some of them change teachers every academic year? Who has trained the parents to check the qualifications of a private teacher who gets paid only 4 euros an hour?
Is it maybe that all parents, excusably so, consider the private ELT field a necessary evil; an expensive substitute for the public sector that should really provide this service? Do they indeed feel it’s unfair for them to have to complement their children’s education with private tuition, due to the state’s inadequacy to provide good foreign language education? Does this resentment breed anger, leading to raw blackmail against the school owner, together with indifference about their child’s progress?
The truth is that no other public sector in Europe is doing any better a job than the Greek educational system, at least as far as EFL is concerned. Swedish public school teachers have never heard of the CEFR, which reaches them only as experimental workshops funded by European programmes through the local municipality. French students hardly reach a B1 level by the time they finish school. Italian students already define the biggest PET but not FCE market in Europe. The only difference lies with employment requirements. And the determiner in our case is the “recognition” of certain specific certificates in the public employment sector and thus in major parts of the private sector.
Parents are certainly not aware of these facts. They would also never admit that all they really care about is the certificate. They would never admit that a certificate defines the end of what I would call “constructive learning phase” and the time when usage training should start. Besides, that is why 77% of adult certificate holders cannot actually ‘use’ the foreign language.
Moreover, who can tell parents that things should be different, if things are really not that different? Could it be that school owners have identified themselves too much with the role that both the state and the parents / students market have given us, calling ourselves educators, but actually doing nothing more than following set publishers’ syllabi towards a specific certificate? Is it by chance that our national success rate at Proficiency is 29% when small, nearly unknown Latin American countries reach 100%? How can we fight institutional competition without redefining the actual phases of education through differentiating our role, something that we have the flexibility to achieve as private businesses? How can we develop our own competitive advantages if we do not, in practice, connect the foreign language as a skill with professional orientation?
When school owners choose my services for a better marketing strategy, I tell them, in honesty, that however much money a school spends on communication and advertising, it is more down to good luck, incidents (like a school closing in the area) or something temporary that will pay off any advertising investment. Learning targets differentiation will revalue the role of the trained educator, redefine tuition fees and payment terms, re-educate parents and clean up the market map, as at the moment, as we are all well aware, just about anyone can open a private language school. However, a massive nationwide campaign against institutional competition is not something that can be initiated by one individual or by schools in one area. This is truly a field
I thought it would be useful to analyse here the kind of competition that threatens the average school owner the most. More specifically, school owners often report unfair competition through direct inaccurate information against their school, either through copying of their ideas, inaccurate exam results on competitors’ windows, and most importantly through competitors offering low tuition fees or even free courses. The truth is that none of the above behaviour can be directly dealt with, as either they cannot be proven, or, in the case of low tuition fees or free courses, it’s impossible to change the mind of a school owner, who, without a business plan and a specific strategy, has chosen a suicidal attitude towards the market, thus strangling the other schools nearby.
Why, though, do school owners, suicidal or not, choose such unfair approaches or low tuition fees / free courses to compete with the other schools in their area? As I’ve mentioned a number of times before in this column, effective marketing really means the development of, and communication of, competitive advantages. Aren’t there specific competitive advantages that any school could work on? Aren’t there solutions to make every school more attractive to parents, through developing a better educational system that parents would appreciate? At the end of the day, however, would parents actually appreciate any such possible competitive advantages?
This problem, which didn’t exist more than 15 years ago, has never been related to the ability of a school owner (or lack of it) to achieve a better, more effective marketing strategy or better service promotion and sales. I believe the problem has always been that school owners deal with the wrong kind of competition, i.e. professionals in their own field, instead of facing the real competition that has limited their growth potential to an all-time low; their own market, parents and students, their own representatives in the field, and primarily themselves, who neglect the most useful target of their profession: educating their own market about their role as foreign language schools.
This I call “institutional competition”. Eight out of ten schools we serviced in 2005 named as their number one competitor private lessons and low fees. These two factors are very significant in how the market perceives the ELT field. Our 2005 market research showed that the vast majority of parents with children in the ELT field believe that all private language schools do roughly the same job, probably using the same level and quality of materials and sharing a common exam success rate. It is not my purpose to analyse how true this is or not, but rather point out how it explains the market’s attitude.
If parents indeed believe that wherever their child goes he/she will pass the necessary exam and get the desired certificate, then how irrational is it for a parent to choose the school that is closest to home and furthermore, the school that is closest to home and cheapest? And how irrational is it for a parent to hire a private teacher who will come to the house and get paid much less than a school would?
Who has ever talked substantially to the parents about the pedagogical implications of the classroom environment, methodological issues, the running costs of a school, the reasons why some of them change teachers every academic year? Who has trained the parents to check the qualifications of a private teacher who gets paid only 4 euros an hour?
Is it maybe that all parents, excusably so, consider the private ELT field a necessary evil; an expensive substitute for the public sector that should really provide this service? Do they indeed feel it’s unfair for them to have to complement their children’s education with private tuition, due to the state’s inadequacy to provide good foreign language education? Does this resentment breed anger, leading to raw blackmail against the school owner, together with indifference about their child’s progress?
The truth is that no other public sector in Europe is doing any better a job than the Greek educational system, at least as far as EFL is concerned. Swedish public school teachers have never heard of the CEFR, which reaches them only as experimental workshops funded by European programmes through the local municipality. French students hardly reach a B1 level by the time they finish school. Italian students already define the biggest PET but not FCE market in Europe. The only difference lies with employment requirements. And the determiner in our case is the “recognition” of certain specific certificates in the public employment sector and thus in major parts of the private sector.
Parents are certainly not aware of these facts. They would also never admit that all they really care about is the certificate. They would never admit that a certificate defines the end of what I would call “constructive learning phase” and the time when usage training should start. Besides, that is why 77% of adult certificate holders cannot actually ‘use’ the foreign language.
Moreover, who can tell parents that things should be different, if things are really not that different? Could it be that school owners have identified themselves too much with the role that both the state and the parents / students market have given us, calling ourselves educators, but actually doing nothing more than following set publishers’ syllabi towards a specific certificate? Is it by chance that our national success rate at Proficiency is 29% when small, nearly unknown Latin American countries reach 100%? How can we fight institutional competition without redefining the actual phases of education through differentiating our role, something that we have the flexibility to achieve as private businesses? How can we develop our own competitive advantages if we do not, in practice, connect the foreign language as a skill with professional orientation?
When school owners choose my services for a better marketing strategy, I tell them, in honesty, that however much money a school spends on communication and advertising, it is more down to good luck, incidents (like a school closing in the area) or something temporary that will pay off any advertising investment. Learning targets differentiation will revalue the role of the trained educator, redefine tuition fees and payment terms, re-educate parents and clean up the market map, as at the moment, as we are all well aware, just about anyone can open a private language school. However, a massive nationwide campaign against institutional competition is not something that can be initiated by one individual or by schools in one area. This is truly a field
14 March 2006
The War of the Worlds - "School owners vs Publishers"
A few years ago, when I took my first publishing course back in Oxford, I came across possibly the biggest revelation of all in my ELT career. Creating books had always been, to my knowledge, a long process that required lots of research. Being a salesperson, then a consultant and later a commissioning editor and publishing manager, I realized that there’s far more than commercial criteria to be met through exhausting research when creating a book. The biggest pedagogical weight of a book is not only whether it meets learning targets, corresponds to word banks, exam requirements and grammatical structures and functions. Most of all, it is about whether it contributes to the educational, cultural and psychological needs of the learner, especially the young learner, through appropriacy, consistency and a vision to convey messages that will create healthy language users and citizens. That gave me a clear definition of the role of a good commissioning editor that most high quality publishers have on board.
It was, thus, a great surprise when I recently came across a couple of books in the Greek market, addressed to young learners, including or even making use of some hilarious elements. Without being puritanical, now that I have become a parent, I felt rather uncomfortable flicking through books with nudity or voyeuristic implications, references to drinking problems, wild youth, etc. Emotions of jealousy and intrigue between teenagers described or illustrated take us back to the times of “the bold and the beautiful” and other similar soap operas.
Taking a closer look it was not difficult to notice that the lack of knowledge of the art of fair and scientific publishing went even deeper, to educational issues. Consistency is non existent in many books, overlooking the widely accepted consolidation processes, while in some others, dryness and restriction to narrow frameworks of lists required by exams deprive students of any possibility to functionally and creatively perform.
Looking back at the books of several years ago, it is easy for the average educator to notice the deterioration of quality, spirit, creativity, novelty, but also appropriacy in terms of standard publishing and educational rules. Besides, most publishers today agree that there is nothing new in the market, everything is reproduced and books become sellers or best sellers only through effective marketing. Why is that? What has changed over the years, apart from the overall consumer attitudes and lifestyle?
The answer, one would think, lies in competition beyond any measure. The truth is that back in 1989, unlike today, there were a handful of publishers in the Greek market. When OUP, Longman or (the then) Heinemann for example counted a 10 to 25% market share each in the early ‘90s, nowadays market shares are narrow pieces of a big pie for everybody. Most publishing marketing plans focus more on freebies, free seminars, even business training nowadays, recognizing a rising need in the market that I’ve been dealing with for the past three years, and are exhausted through thousands of sample copies, many times never to be looked at.
All this is a very expensive investment. It creates more cash flow needs, which means more viability stress for the publishing company or branch, and of course more aggressive competition.
Most of all, it creates a need to more rapidly make publishing moves and launches into the market, which always weighs against quality. The average three years of research and development of a good book series was forced by, mainly Greek publishers’, specific practices and now you hear from 1 year of publishing preparation and production, down to three months from certain publishers. Research and development or production specialists disappear, and instead, well qualified teachers write, edit, proofread and sometimes even design, for little money and of course no copyright on their work.
At the same time, international publishers try to ensure more investment from mother companies abroad, based on unrealistic sales forecasts, deliberately designed so that they can excuse a decent investment in advance. Of course when actual sales figures pop up, the big drawback comes along, and incredibly capable people follow the “HR rearrangement trends” (HR = Human Resources).
I honestly believe that the crisis that is knocking on the door of the publishing world is not only due to the global economic pressures, but also to the lack of flexibility and alternative plans. For example, instead of basing investment on forecasts, one could base profit plans on existing resource controls and perform what the financial world calls “mainstream resources and profit maintenance” at times of risk. Thus, one could silently plan the big boom for after the times of crisis, invest in know-how and high specialization of HR, and most of all avoid quality sacrifices that might need to be overcome with lots of difficulty in the future, as the market seems to remember longer than we hope.
However, I truly need to point out that publishing companies are not the only ones to blame for the current situation. As independent, competitive companies, they follow restricting trends in order to survive. And I have realized that most of the time their market has reflected their own bad habits and practices onto them, thus disorientating them from good publishing.
A year ago I called together a group of school owners and directors of studies to a research focus group on behalf of a (then anonymous) publisher. We very simply asked for the elements they would require for a book at a specific level. We recorded all the feedback and created a brief to be seen by the focus group. To our simple question “would you adopt this book?” the unanimous answer we received was “no”. Although the brief was totally and seriously based on their own feedback.
It is no secret, at the same time, that school owners play with publishers, they trigger competition through gossip, information flow, asking for innumerable sample copies, asking to be bribed rather indiscreetly, and all other sorts of such favours.
I understand that this is the price of bad or superficial client management and training from the publishers’ side over the last ten years. I understand that this is a power show from the school owners’ side as well. Publishers have trained their clientele badly over the last years, and their clients, teachers and school owners, have learnt to depend too much on the book for syllabus design and teaching. Bad market and financial practices have led everybody not to be able to afford good publishing or independent teaching. Lack of money causes time constraints, lack of investment and finally a vicious circle of all the above. What nobody seems to understand is that quality is mainly defined by duration and that the viability of the Greek ELT depends on fair co-operation, fair feedback, and most of all on the fact that every small or big educational business in order to survive, develop and succeed, has to sell something. In fact, I’m not sure that most of them do any more.
I believe that quality has to be seen from a much wider perspective in the Greek ELT.
It was, thus, a great surprise when I recently came across a couple of books in the Greek market, addressed to young learners, including or even making use of some hilarious elements. Without being puritanical, now that I have become a parent, I felt rather uncomfortable flicking through books with nudity or voyeuristic implications, references to drinking problems, wild youth, etc. Emotions of jealousy and intrigue between teenagers described or illustrated take us back to the times of “the bold and the beautiful” and other similar soap operas.
Taking a closer look it was not difficult to notice that the lack of knowledge of the art of fair and scientific publishing went even deeper, to educational issues. Consistency is non existent in many books, overlooking the widely accepted consolidation processes, while in some others, dryness and restriction to narrow frameworks of lists required by exams deprive students of any possibility to functionally and creatively perform.
Looking back at the books of several years ago, it is easy for the average educator to notice the deterioration of quality, spirit, creativity, novelty, but also appropriacy in terms of standard publishing and educational rules. Besides, most publishers today agree that there is nothing new in the market, everything is reproduced and books become sellers or best sellers only through effective marketing. Why is that? What has changed over the years, apart from the overall consumer attitudes and lifestyle?
The answer, one would think, lies in competition beyond any measure. The truth is that back in 1989, unlike today, there were a handful of publishers in the Greek market. When OUP, Longman or (the then) Heinemann for example counted a 10 to 25% market share each in the early ‘90s, nowadays market shares are narrow pieces of a big pie for everybody. Most publishing marketing plans focus more on freebies, free seminars, even business training nowadays, recognizing a rising need in the market that I’ve been dealing with for the past three years, and are exhausted through thousands of sample copies, many times never to be looked at.
All this is a very expensive investment. It creates more cash flow needs, which means more viability stress for the publishing company or branch, and of course more aggressive competition.
Most of all, it creates a need to more rapidly make publishing moves and launches into the market, which always weighs against quality. The average three years of research and development of a good book series was forced by, mainly Greek publishers’, specific practices and now you hear from 1 year of publishing preparation and production, down to three months from certain publishers. Research and development or production specialists disappear, and instead, well qualified teachers write, edit, proofread and sometimes even design, for little money and of course no copyright on their work.
At the same time, international publishers try to ensure more investment from mother companies abroad, based on unrealistic sales forecasts, deliberately designed so that they can excuse a decent investment in advance. Of course when actual sales figures pop up, the big drawback comes along, and incredibly capable people follow the “HR rearrangement trends” (HR = Human Resources).
I honestly believe that the crisis that is knocking on the door of the publishing world is not only due to the global economic pressures, but also to the lack of flexibility and alternative plans. For example, instead of basing investment on forecasts, one could base profit plans on existing resource controls and perform what the financial world calls “mainstream resources and profit maintenance” at times of risk. Thus, one could silently plan the big boom for after the times of crisis, invest in know-how and high specialization of HR, and most of all avoid quality sacrifices that might need to be overcome with lots of difficulty in the future, as the market seems to remember longer than we hope.
However, I truly need to point out that publishing companies are not the only ones to blame for the current situation. As independent, competitive companies, they follow restricting trends in order to survive. And I have realized that most of the time their market has reflected their own bad habits and practices onto them, thus disorientating them from good publishing.
A year ago I called together a group of school owners and directors of studies to a research focus group on behalf of a (then anonymous) publisher. We very simply asked for the elements they would require for a book at a specific level. We recorded all the feedback and created a brief to be seen by the focus group. To our simple question “would you adopt this book?” the unanimous answer we received was “no”. Although the brief was totally and seriously based on their own feedback.
It is no secret, at the same time, that school owners play with publishers, they trigger competition through gossip, information flow, asking for innumerable sample copies, asking to be bribed rather indiscreetly, and all other sorts of such favours.
I understand that this is the price of bad or superficial client management and training from the publishers’ side over the last ten years. I understand that this is a power show from the school owners’ side as well. Publishers have trained their clientele badly over the last years, and their clients, teachers and school owners, have learnt to depend too much on the book for syllabus design and teaching. Bad market and financial practices have led everybody not to be able to afford good publishing or independent teaching. Lack of money causes time constraints, lack of investment and finally a vicious circle of all the above. What nobody seems to understand is that quality is mainly defined by duration and that the viability of the Greek ELT depends on fair co-operation, fair feedback, and most of all on the fact that every small or big educational business in order to survive, develop and succeed, has to sell something. In fact, I’m not sure that most of them do any more.
I believe that quality has to be seen from a much wider perspective in the Greek ELT.
15 February 2006
A few good reasons against known business consultancy in the Greek ELT
After 3 years in the field of business planning and coaching the Greek ELT enterprise I found out that there are still areas that are open to relative interpretation and subject to diverse approaches. Our kind of activity started filling in a gap in the field and then grew and our needs grew as well, and then we started reaching out for more people. This took us back to our initial SWOT research which analysed the field of business consultants, so as to potentially trace the right specialists to join our team but most of all share our vision and our philosophy for the educational landscape in our country. This temporarily proved to be a fruitless and heartbreaking venture, but only because we had to adopt a different point of view.
Our field, with all the problems and drawbacks it suffers, is maybe one of the few fields bearing the highest Spiritual Quotient (SQ) of other professional fields in our country. That quotient cannot be served just with numbers and fancy promotional ideas.
In the past three decades, business and HR consultants have based their guidance only on measurable criteria and the use of them. Leaders’ IQ and EQ became the measuring tapes of inter-personal and inter-customer communication. Every business and marketing plan started with a SWOT analysis, Porter’s five forces, interrelated market research and financial and human resources analysis and projections. Traditionally a business plan also stated the vision of the business man/woman, but that ended up serving as the decoration only. The main axis however, has always been the competition and relevant competitive advantages against investment and profit.
From the moment we started researching other professional fields, along with ours, we saw that private ELT in Greece is the only field that professionals join not only to make money or just because they like this job. There is maybe the highest proportion of professionals that join a field because they really have a vision of what education should be, and want to make changes based on strong ideological foundations. Whether they know that they are joining a semi-recognised field or not, they soon understand that they are filling substantial gaps of the official educational system, while the foreign language exams and certificates were just the means to do so.
Business consultancy has a very clear purpose; to make the owner of a business conscious of the functions and pre-requisites for their business to grow profitably. This approach is based on two basic principles. The first is that sales are based on market needs so we should focus on how we can lead market needs effectively. The second is that profit is the ultimate target for the business and entrepreneur’s viability. The whole focus of these principles makes use of the variations between businesses in the same field to create communicative and competitive advantages.
In our field, however, all businesses offer the same service. All books provide the same learning targets. Also, in our field, needs, whether established or industry driven, eventually shape personalities. Education as a service or product breeds the market of tomorrow, but also the ethics, the dreams, the ambition and the effectiveness of our students in competing with more cosmopolitan citizens of other states in the big European melting pot.
What is it that could make a good business consultant too poor for the needs of a school owner? The answer is his/her lack of vision as well. However globalised our economy has become and principles of business viability apply to all sorts of enterprise, no business plan can guarantee viability of a school business if it doesn’t substantially bear in mind the personality and vision of the school owner. Measurable criteria must work towards the support of this vision and ensure inspiration of staff, students and parents involved with the school. Finance and marketing methodologies have to obtain a distinct identity reflecting the educator and the tens of generations that have been filtered through the school. Training has to become coaching and coaching has to become sharing and support. Most of all, especially for the educational business, business coaching has to take the form of life coaching. The parameters that recognize that the owner’s personality and the school reflect on each other have to become the corpus of each planner who then applies methodologies referring to targets, controls and correctional moves.
When reaching out for business support always make sure that:
a) Business and project planning are always followed by monitoring
b) An educational business plan always involves your vision and reasons for being in the field
c) You build on communicating your vision and finding out who are those that share it
d) You build on strengthening your vision and thus your messages to your local community
e) You face your financial figures as a tool that will empower your vision
f) You treat your business as a person that reflects your vision
g) You ask your trainer and then your coach to take you as seriously as their own vision for the field. Explore whether they have a vision
h) Your specialist knows your field from within
i) Your specialist defines quality with criteria that reflect on your students.
Bearing in mind all the above, I have already made the decision that all my forthcoming training sessions will start with reference to the experiment of the 100th Japanese Ape. The field has already reached critical mass and is strong enough to initiate the next historical change.
Our field, with all the problems and drawbacks it suffers, is maybe one of the few fields bearing the highest Spiritual Quotient (SQ) of other professional fields in our country. That quotient cannot be served just with numbers and fancy promotional ideas.
In the past three decades, business and HR consultants have based their guidance only on measurable criteria and the use of them. Leaders’ IQ and EQ became the measuring tapes of inter-personal and inter-customer communication. Every business and marketing plan started with a SWOT analysis, Porter’s five forces, interrelated market research and financial and human resources analysis and projections. Traditionally a business plan also stated the vision of the business man/woman, but that ended up serving as the decoration only. The main axis however, has always been the competition and relevant competitive advantages against investment and profit.
From the moment we started researching other professional fields, along with ours, we saw that private ELT in Greece is the only field that professionals join not only to make money or just because they like this job. There is maybe the highest proportion of professionals that join a field because they really have a vision of what education should be, and want to make changes based on strong ideological foundations. Whether they know that they are joining a semi-recognised field or not, they soon understand that they are filling substantial gaps of the official educational system, while the foreign language exams and certificates were just the means to do so.
Business consultancy has a very clear purpose; to make the owner of a business conscious of the functions and pre-requisites for their business to grow profitably. This approach is based on two basic principles. The first is that sales are based on market needs so we should focus on how we can lead market needs effectively. The second is that profit is the ultimate target for the business and entrepreneur’s viability. The whole focus of these principles makes use of the variations between businesses in the same field to create communicative and competitive advantages.
In our field, however, all businesses offer the same service. All books provide the same learning targets. Also, in our field, needs, whether established or industry driven, eventually shape personalities. Education as a service or product breeds the market of tomorrow, but also the ethics, the dreams, the ambition and the effectiveness of our students in competing with more cosmopolitan citizens of other states in the big European melting pot.
What is it that could make a good business consultant too poor for the needs of a school owner? The answer is his/her lack of vision as well. However globalised our economy has become and principles of business viability apply to all sorts of enterprise, no business plan can guarantee viability of a school business if it doesn’t substantially bear in mind the personality and vision of the school owner. Measurable criteria must work towards the support of this vision and ensure inspiration of staff, students and parents involved with the school. Finance and marketing methodologies have to obtain a distinct identity reflecting the educator and the tens of generations that have been filtered through the school. Training has to become coaching and coaching has to become sharing and support. Most of all, especially for the educational business, business coaching has to take the form of life coaching. The parameters that recognize that the owner’s personality and the school reflect on each other have to become the corpus of each planner who then applies methodologies referring to targets, controls and correctional moves.
When reaching out for business support always make sure that:
a) Business and project planning are always followed by monitoring
b) An educational business plan always involves your vision and reasons for being in the field
c) You build on communicating your vision and finding out who are those that share it
d) You build on strengthening your vision and thus your messages to your local community
e) You face your financial figures as a tool that will empower your vision
f) You treat your business as a person that reflects your vision
g) You ask your trainer and then your coach to take you as seriously as their own vision for the field. Explore whether they have a vision
h) Your specialist knows your field from within
i) Your specialist defines quality with criteria that reflect on your students.
Bearing in mind all the above, I have already made the decision that all my forthcoming training sessions will start with reference to the experiment of the 100th Japanese Ape. The field has already reached critical mass and is strong enough to initiate the next historical change.
15 December 2005
A tale of two parallel worlds
In a small Latin American country, in 1947, a major decision had to be made by the unstable local Government. The country had just gained its independence, thus they had to organize a new National Guard. Typhus, diphtheria and malnutrition were wiping out whole local communities. The National Guard, as a specialized army needed healthy men and women, well trained, but most of all capable of physically dealing with the challenges of the jungle and the rainforests, the guerilla attacks and sabotages, the unfairly superior war machine of the foreign powers. However, there were only 760 local medical doctors and 4,500 nurses to serve a population of about 14 million people.
International pharmaceutical companies spotted the urgent need for vaccination, as the rest of health improvement parameters relating to nutrition and hygiene were of secondary priority at that point. It is great to serve the common good but even greater if you have a massive market as well. Four pharmaceutical companies came to a historical agreement with the local government that would provide long term solutions to the problem. More specifically:
1) It was particularly difficult to educate all the people about the need for vaccination. However, people would respond easier if they had an incentive. Being struck by poverty, everybody wanted a safe position in the National Guard and subsequently the whole State mechanism. A beneficial solution for everybody would be for the Government to establish a certificate of vaccination as a pre-requisite for every applicant, but also for every new student in every school.
2) As the Government’s medical resources could not support the existing demand, the consortium of the four companies offered to train responsible individuals in:
a. Basic principals of hygiene
b. How to give injections and control side effects
c. How to basically select and train new individuals, before they approached the consortium for the final course and certification
d. How to report to the consortium and the local Government medical authorities
These individuals would take a certificate from the consortium, recognized by the Government, which would allow them to open their own small “vaccination” clinics. These clinics could only provide the above two services, i.e. vaccination and basic hygiene consultancy.
The consortium would make money from sales of vaccination jabs. However, the need for a good job, as the State had a limited number of applicants it could hire every year, grew and this led thousands of potential clinic owners to apply for training and certification. Within the next few years the consortium saw that they could decide on a nominal fee to apply for every course and certificate granted.
The truth is that the system worked. In less than 7 years typhus and diphtheria disappeared from this country, which by the way has been disease-free since then. On top of that, the knowledge gathered over the years by the clinic owners improved the quality of services offered, many of these individuals attended extra courses, some of them even officially studied medicine and turned their clinics into proper general health care units. However, as an established para-medical field, it flourished to include 60,000 clinics in a country that, due to demographic changes, now has a population of about 12 million people. The State has not changed the out-dated law in the past 55 years, so officially these medical units are “vaccination clinics” and recognized as such. Viability stress has obliged the owners and their successors to focus on what they know best; vaccinations and basic hygiene consultancy. The worst thing is that the rest of the population, still functioning within an out-dated legal system still ask for their vaccination certificates in order to get a good position in the State mechanism, or open their own clinic. Since the people are asking for that, this is what clinics offer and a vicious circle has been created, maybe with no way to break it.
International observers in 2004 reported that this small country has been impressively disease free and products contributing to everyday hygiene sell like nowhere else. However, this country has the highest rates of child obesity, heart diseases, strokes and female cancer in Latin America.
The unions of the clinics throughout the country are aware of the overall health problem, as many of their local community members happened to apply for a job in the U.S. Their application was turned down due to their medical history. However, they all have a vaccination certificate.
The consortium of the four companies still exists, contributing to health improvement in other poor countries and just receiving nominal fees for the thousands of jabs sold in that little country every year. On top of that other, technologically more improved jabs have arrived in the market, along with other companies producing and distributing hygiene products, antiseptics, syringes, etc.
Vaccination certificate applicants of the public have a clinic next to their place. They take the whole process for granted and the priority of health improvement, along with the vaccination itself, has been degraded from number one priority to a standard presupposition. They never budget even for the nominal fees and sometimes they disappear, using another clinic for their annual booster jab.
The big challenges vaccination clinic owners come across are:
1) How do they prove that their clinic is the best compared to the competition in terms of good service, complete side-effect control, pleasant environment, and compliance with hygiene standards?
2) How do they manage the public?
3) How do they educate the public, as the consortium had to do decades ago, for them to understand that good health is ensured partly through vaccination, but without proper nutrition and on-going health care, good health cannot be guaranteed?
In that world public health is depending on such a system and expecting such answers. In a parallel world, the Greek ELT, education is expecting similar answers too.
International pharmaceutical companies spotted the urgent need for vaccination, as the rest of health improvement parameters relating to nutrition and hygiene were of secondary priority at that point. It is great to serve the common good but even greater if you have a massive market as well. Four pharmaceutical companies came to a historical agreement with the local government that would provide long term solutions to the problem. More specifically:
1) It was particularly difficult to educate all the people about the need for vaccination. However, people would respond easier if they had an incentive. Being struck by poverty, everybody wanted a safe position in the National Guard and subsequently the whole State mechanism. A beneficial solution for everybody would be for the Government to establish a certificate of vaccination as a pre-requisite for every applicant, but also for every new student in every school.
2) As the Government’s medical resources could not support the existing demand, the consortium of the four companies offered to train responsible individuals in:
a. Basic principals of hygiene
b. How to give injections and control side effects
c. How to basically select and train new individuals, before they approached the consortium for the final course and certification
d. How to report to the consortium and the local Government medical authorities
These individuals would take a certificate from the consortium, recognized by the Government, which would allow them to open their own small “vaccination” clinics. These clinics could only provide the above two services, i.e. vaccination and basic hygiene consultancy.
The consortium would make money from sales of vaccination jabs. However, the need for a good job, as the State had a limited number of applicants it could hire every year, grew and this led thousands of potential clinic owners to apply for training and certification. Within the next few years the consortium saw that they could decide on a nominal fee to apply for every course and certificate granted.
The truth is that the system worked. In less than 7 years typhus and diphtheria disappeared from this country, which by the way has been disease-free since then. On top of that, the knowledge gathered over the years by the clinic owners improved the quality of services offered, many of these individuals attended extra courses, some of them even officially studied medicine and turned their clinics into proper general health care units. However, as an established para-medical field, it flourished to include 60,000 clinics in a country that, due to demographic changes, now has a population of about 12 million people. The State has not changed the out-dated law in the past 55 years, so officially these medical units are “vaccination clinics” and recognized as such. Viability stress has obliged the owners and their successors to focus on what they know best; vaccinations and basic hygiene consultancy. The worst thing is that the rest of the population, still functioning within an out-dated legal system still ask for their vaccination certificates in order to get a good position in the State mechanism, or open their own clinic. Since the people are asking for that, this is what clinics offer and a vicious circle has been created, maybe with no way to break it.
International observers in 2004 reported that this small country has been impressively disease free and products contributing to everyday hygiene sell like nowhere else. However, this country has the highest rates of child obesity, heart diseases, strokes and female cancer in Latin America.
The unions of the clinics throughout the country are aware of the overall health problem, as many of their local community members happened to apply for a job in the U.S. Their application was turned down due to their medical history. However, they all have a vaccination certificate.
The consortium of the four companies still exists, contributing to health improvement in other poor countries and just receiving nominal fees for the thousands of jabs sold in that little country every year. On top of that other, technologically more improved jabs have arrived in the market, along with other companies producing and distributing hygiene products, antiseptics, syringes, etc.
Vaccination certificate applicants of the public have a clinic next to their place. They take the whole process for granted and the priority of health improvement, along with the vaccination itself, has been degraded from number one priority to a standard presupposition. They never budget even for the nominal fees and sometimes they disappear, using another clinic for their annual booster jab.
The big challenges vaccination clinic owners come across are:
1) How do they prove that their clinic is the best compared to the competition in terms of good service, complete side-effect control, pleasant environment, and compliance with hygiene standards?
2) How do they manage the public?
3) How do they educate the public, as the consortium had to do decades ago, for them to understand that good health is ensured partly through vaccination, but without proper nutrition and on-going health care, good health cannot be guaranteed?
In that world public health is depending on such a system and expecting such answers. In a parallel world, the Greek ELT, education is expecting similar answers too.
15 July 2005
Dealing with adults
Since the beginning of our co-operation with schools it has been pretty obvious that the adult students’ issue is rather a painful one. Adult classes are necessary, but at the same time they are problematic, actually for the same reasons throughout the country. We started our 2005 annual market research focusing on the adult market and here are some interesting and useful results, I hope, ideas.
First of all, this year’s research methods became a bit more sophisticated. We approached a respectable sample of about 1200 employed adults as well as a smaller sample of about 800 tertiary education students. However, our research did not consist of only a set questionnaire, but an amazing 40% of both samples accepted to fill in a more in depth personal questionnaire, along with a short placement test in English!
It was amazing to see that 48% of the employed adults and 68% of the university students claimed to hold a B2 certificate, while 24% of them held a higher certificate as well, equal to C1 or C2. The average time since they took the examination successfully was about 11 years ago.
The shocking results of the second, more in depth research that took place exclusively amongst the adults that had a certificate, showed that their certificate hardly reflected their level of English! More specifically, the placement test we gave them showed that part of the sample could slightly reach B1 level, with the majority to confidently perform up to A2. Only 4% of the sample that moved onto the secondary level of our research proved to know in practice the foreign language up to the level that their certificate reflected.
The tasks given were highly related to their specific needs of using a foreign language, i.e. dealing with everyday and work environment spoken language requirements, and written forms to be encountered in a work and social environment, like application forms, short reports, faxes and e-mails. The tasks for the university students community included application forms, cover letters, letters of reference, CVs and short essays.
Interviewing managers or employers with activity in other countries, we saw that very few of them were confident enough to rely on their knowledge of a foreign language. Usually, when they travel, they have an employee who speaks the foreign language better with them, but with a lot of compromise, or sometimes a hired interpreter, or a non-official interpreter. Actually, about 70% of the managers/employers we asked do not mind the amateurism of a relative or an acquaintance, either for on-site support or translation of documents. This is, of course, so indicative of the business practices in our country, relating to the complete lack of competitive advantages in every professional field.
Another shocking conclusion from our research was that 100% of the sample do recognise the importance of speaking at least one foreign language well, but when we moved on with the more in depth questionnaires and placement tests, the vast majority of the sample answered the following:
a) They are highly interested in examinations and certificates only if and when these are pre-requisites for employment or a promotion either in the public or private sector or for studies abroad.
b) Almost 100% of the secondary sample replied that they do not relate or connect examinations and certificates to the good knowledge of a foreign language.
c) They do not feel that the good knowledge of a foreign language is in substance so important to them, and when they need it every now and then, they think they can get by with limited knowledge or help by somebody else.
d) They do not see the good knowledge of a foreign language as a real personal competitive advantage in finding a job, as most employers do not pay the necessary attention to foreign languages proficiency.
e) They do not recognise any foreign language knowledge standard in certificates apart from their role as an official qualification if and when required by employers or agencies.
This entire attitude, if not mentality, reflects both the tendency of Greeks to consider private foreign language education a necessary evil and the lack of responsibility in business and state initiative, ambition and success. However, it also shows the need for this nation to be trained in realising what the international environment we are part of is like and what it requires. The role of the foreign language teaching community has not been exploited to the full as, apart from teachers, we should all be carriers of another mentality, promoting cultural awareness, international communication and promote or design measures against our national isolationism. As a field, we take the need of knowing and speaking a foreign language for granted and all we advertise is that we teach foreign languages at our school, and sometimes that we also do it well! Our exclusive focus on the children’s/pupils’ community, which as long as the certificates are recognised can be taken for granted, has limited our scope into how we can help our students “finish English” in as few years as possible. However, we forget that young learners themselves hardly make the decision to go to a foreign language centre by themselves. And if the situation stays as such, then the only criteria in choosing the best foreign language centre will be just the distance from home and how cheap the tuitions fees are. Not to mention of course, that 38% of foreign language centre owners have not even been to the country of the language they teach even for a week…
First of all, this year’s research methods became a bit more sophisticated. We approached a respectable sample of about 1200 employed adults as well as a smaller sample of about 800 tertiary education students. However, our research did not consist of only a set questionnaire, but an amazing 40% of both samples accepted to fill in a more in depth personal questionnaire, along with a short placement test in English!
It was amazing to see that 48% of the employed adults and 68% of the university students claimed to hold a B2 certificate, while 24% of them held a higher certificate as well, equal to C1 or C2. The average time since they took the examination successfully was about 11 years ago.
The shocking results of the second, more in depth research that took place exclusively amongst the adults that had a certificate, showed that their certificate hardly reflected their level of English! More specifically, the placement test we gave them showed that part of the sample could slightly reach B1 level, with the majority to confidently perform up to A2. Only 4% of the sample that moved onto the secondary level of our research proved to know in practice the foreign language up to the level that their certificate reflected.
The tasks given were highly related to their specific needs of using a foreign language, i.e. dealing with everyday and work environment spoken language requirements, and written forms to be encountered in a work and social environment, like application forms, short reports, faxes and e-mails. The tasks for the university students community included application forms, cover letters, letters of reference, CVs and short essays.
Interviewing managers or employers with activity in other countries, we saw that very few of them were confident enough to rely on their knowledge of a foreign language. Usually, when they travel, they have an employee who speaks the foreign language better with them, but with a lot of compromise, or sometimes a hired interpreter, or a non-official interpreter. Actually, about 70% of the managers/employers we asked do not mind the amateurism of a relative or an acquaintance, either for on-site support or translation of documents. This is, of course, so indicative of the business practices in our country, relating to the complete lack of competitive advantages in every professional field.
Another shocking conclusion from our research was that 100% of the sample do recognise the importance of speaking at least one foreign language well, but when we moved on with the more in depth questionnaires and placement tests, the vast majority of the sample answered the following:
a) They are highly interested in examinations and certificates only if and when these are pre-requisites for employment or a promotion either in the public or private sector or for studies abroad.
b) Almost 100% of the secondary sample replied that they do not relate or connect examinations and certificates to the good knowledge of a foreign language.
c) They do not feel that the good knowledge of a foreign language is in substance so important to them, and when they need it every now and then, they think they can get by with limited knowledge or help by somebody else.
d) They do not see the good knowledge of a foreign language as a real personal competitive advantage in finding a job, as most employers do not pay the necessary attention to foreign languages proficiency.
e) They do not recognise any foreign language knowledge standard in certificates apart from their role as an official qualification if and when required by employers or agencies.
This entire attitude, if not mentality, reflects both the tendency of Greeks to consider private foreign language education a necessary evil and the lack of responsibility in business and state initiative, ambition and success. However, it also shows the need for this nation to be trained in realising what the international environment we are part of is like and what it requires. The role of the foreign language teaching community has not been exploited to the full as, apart from teachers, we should all be carriers of another mentality, promoting cultural awareness, international communication and promote or design measures against our national isolationism. As a field, we take the need of knowing and speaking a foreign language for granted and all we advertise is that we teach foreign languages at our school, and sometimes that we also do it well! Our exclusive focus on the children’s/pupils’ community, which as long as the certificates are recognised can be taken for granted, has limited our scope into how we can help our students “finish English” in as few years as possible. However, we forget that young learners themselves hardly make the decision to go to a foreign language centre by themselves. And if the situation stays as such, then the only criteria in choosing the best foreign language centre will be just the distance from home and how cheap the tuitions fees are. Not to mention of course, that 38% of foreign language centre owners have not even been to the country of the language they teach even for a week…
15 February 2005
Issues of representation - Your power is your market
Greece has never had a particularly good reputation for collective activity and representation. All professional fields are represented by their chambers and associations but participation and contribution becomes an issue only in times of difficulty or crisis, which in most cases proves to be too late. Besides, everybody wants to be a president, and usually the elected president is the one who has the time to be one.
Times, facts and prospects are changing drastically. The EU is exercising pressure on the State for a big change in FLT in our country: further incorporation of the CEF standards so that in a few years time we will not be talking about ‘foreign languages’ but about the ‘languages of Europe’, some of which must have been incorporated in the national curriculum as optional communicative and teaching tools. On top of that, the KPG will have to reach the point of compliance with the standards of a national bac level certificate.
If such a big change occurs, the role of language as a teaching subject, but also the role of our schools, ourselves as business owners and teachers, our associations, the publishers, the franchise chains and especially that of the examinations, will have to transform.
The various reactions to the above statement could be that it is all based on rumours; that the relationship between the Ministry of Education and the relevant authorities in the EU has been constantly developing and rather blurry throughout the years; that the State has proven to be to slow and that no comprehensive reform has been seriously considered over the past few years while the trade power of international examinations corpora has “saved” the day so many times.
However, this is exactly what the main weakness of the ELT field in Greece consists of: institutional uncertainty.
The relationship between the private ELT sector and the State has so far been based on a major inferiority complex. The State preserved and encouraged the development of the field as long as everything worked towards its interest. Compliance with the terms of a free market, a widespread tax source, a piloting field for the definition of needs in foreign language education, a productive field for training students towards the internationally recognised certificates, everything in fact that the State could not provide for about 40 years, was generously provided by the private frontisteria FL certificates industry.
At the same time the State, with all the political adventures of the ‘70s and the ‘80s, could not tame and recognise private businesses that literally offered what it was not in a position to offer. Especially when no major organisation can build a curriculum with an orientation to certificates that one day will be competing with its own one. The ultimate truth is that the State would never give fair credit to the private frontisteria sector.
The above oxymoron led the field to compete solely on an institutional basis. For years and years the local associations and the federation fought for several levels of institutional recognition. The recognition of the PALSO examinations and of the frontisteria as a primary instead of an auxiliary productive force, together with the setting of criteria and levels of social security, salaries and tuition fees, created the arena that literally gave the associations the role of a Union instead of that of a Chamber of FLT providers.
The result of the above misunderstanding was an even bigger oxymoron. One of the biggest national responsibilities, the foreign language training of so many generations of students, was born by a clearly private sector and its market, whereas the institutional principles and relevant legislation were defined by an observer. This private sector grew unfettered as everybody was mainly concerned with the institutional issues. School owners neglected their mission and quality standards, as long as the specific target of preparing students for the certificates was met. Publishers relied too much on this clean and specified market and let inflation overrun their publishing plans.
I know there is an end to this vicious circle. Our power is our market! The market trusts the field, as for foreign language acquisition there has been no other field around. The big issue is that the market is changing and so are its needs. Institutional changes will affect its needs even more. What do we really know about our market and how do we cater for our big responsibility towards it?
Here comes the important role of the representatives of the field. Research and overall marketing of the field should be within the main duties of every association representing tens of professionals. So far the main role of the board of each association has been how to ensure the income of the association through the organisation of events and the examinations. There were also attempts to unify and standardise the market through regulating tuition fees, free lessons and fairness of competition, overlooking, however, the market reality. What is the point of restricting the potential competitive advantages of a member, when this member is being suffocated by the promotional tricks of non-members? What are the protection and competitive advantages that the association offers to this member? Is it the assurance of higher quality? The communication to the parents of what it really means to be a PALSO member? The communication to the parents of why the tuition fees are higher and what they cover? Maybe the communication about the damage that private lessons can do to a student under certain circumstances? Is it really strange that school owners’ interest in their associations is getting less and less, while new associations are being formed under the light of common targets such as better examining conditions or quality assurance?
The existing associations should redefine the dialogue they have been holding with the Greek community, but instead of addressing themselves to the State, they can now turn their heads to the market. Greeks have proven that they are willing to pay, as long as they know that what they pay for is worth it. The problem with parents is that they take frontisteria for granted, almost as much as the public schools. We take parents and what they know about us for granted, so, in their turn, they take us for granted as well.
The messages we have drawn from the year-long market research that was published in the last ELT News issue point out that the role of the associations should focus on the following issues:
a) Define from scratch a realistic and down to earth code of practice and quality for their members and most importantly communicate this code to the parents, with all the competitive advantages that this code gives them. A client must be very clear about his/her benefits. All international and local quality assurance schemes are of private initiative and their power solely lies on the communication and marketing behind them. The only nationally driven code is the criteria the State sets for the licence of operation of a frontisterio. Such movements of associations in the UK and Spain were pointed out in my letter to the federation last summer.
b) Set specific targets for the field that will point out the long experience, know-how and expertise obtained over the years and how these can prove to be useful for the creation of a national curriculum in co-operation with the State. However, for this to happen, the field must obtain the necessary communication power within the community, with serious research and use of existing resources, that will lead to informative campaigns in the public sector and further support.
c) Expose their members to realistic legal and financial developments and techniques that will contribute to their viability. There is no point in organising seminars and commercial presentations by business consultants introduced by local chambers, when the funding programmes they present do not include private FL schools. This is rather sadistic, especially when there are legal and financial transformation plans afoot that would legally qualify a school owner for funding from the EU.
d) Create a PR department that would gather information and rally the media to contribute to their communication plans.
e) Create a research department to specify know-how export opportunities. Our market is powerful but a little bit too small.
f) Realistically face the inevitable and make friends. A healthy State system will contribute to better national functions, the elimination of black economy for the community, the resetting of targets and the creation of a clearer landscape of needs in foreign language education. The private sector will become more diverse, research and competition will boost the quality of services and lead to specialisation according to geography and target markets. Then teaching, or better tutoring, will again become a respectable service worth paying for.
g) Create a long-term business and communication plan for each association and the federation, based on the criteria of private institutions, to ensure resources for research, action, mobility and eventually viability.
The above issues can form a guide of reform for the private sector as well. These are institutional changes that take a long time to bring about and even longer to fruit. However, we should look and plan ahead to create the foundations of a strong field that will be flexible enough to meet the challenges and changes of the future. Productivity and competitiveness are only trapped in Greece because of our ‘last minute’ nature. Last minute decisions make us late followers of foreign-driven developments. And I personally dread the idea of Greece turning into the Florida of Europe. A paradise for pensioners.
Times, facts and prospects are changing drastically. The EU is exercising pressure on the State for a big change in FLT in our country: further incorporation of the CEF standards so that in a few years time we will not be talking about ‘foreign languages’ but about the ‘languages of Europe’, some of which must have been incorporated in the national curriculum as optional communicative and teaching tools. On top of that, the KPG will have to reach the point of compliance with the standards of a national bac level certificate.
If such a big change occurs, the role of language as a teaching subject, but also the role of our schools, ourselves as business owners and teachers, our associations, the publishers, the franchise chains and especially that of the examinations, will have to transform.
The various reactions to the above statement could be that it is all based on rumours; that the relationship between the Ministry of Education and the relevant authorities in the EU has been constantly developing and rather blurry throughout the years; that the State has proven to be to slow and that no comprehensive reform has been seriously considered over the past few years while the trade power of international examinations corpora has “saved” the day so many times.
However, this is exactly what the main weakness of the ELT field in Greece consists of: institutional uncertainty.
The relationship between the private ELT sector and the State has so far been based on a major inferiority complex. The State preserved and encouraged the development of the field as long as everything worked towards its interest. Compliance with the terms of a free market, a widespread tax source, a piloting field for the definition of needs in foreign language education, a productive field for training students towards the internationally recognised certificates, everything in fact that the State could not provide for about 40 years, was generously provided by the private frontisteria FL certificates industry.
At the same time the State, with all the political adventures of the ‘70s and the ‘80s, could not tame and recognise private businesses that literally offered what it was not in a position to offer. Especially when no major organisation can build a curriculum with an orientation to certificates that one day will be competing with its own one. The ultimate truth is that the State would never give fair credit to the private frontisteria sector.
The above oxymoron led the field to compete solely on an institutional basis. For years and years the local associations and the federation fought for several levels of institutional recognition. The recognition of the PALSO examinations and of the frontisteria as a primary instead of an auxiliary productive force, together with the setting of criteria and levels of social security, salaries and tuition fees, created the arena that literally gave the associations the role of a Union instead of that of a Chamber of FLT providers.
The result of the above misunderstanding was an even bigger oxymoron. One of the biggest national responsibilities, the foreign language training of so many generations of students, was born by a clearly private sector and its market, whereas the institutional principles and relevant legislation were defined by an observer. This private sector grew unfettered as everybody was mainly concerned with the institutional issues. School owners neglected their mission and quality standards, as long as the specific target of preparing students for the certificates was met. Publishers relied too much on this clean and specified market and let inflation overrun their publishing plans.
I know there is an end to this vicious circle. Our power is our market! The market trusts the field, as for foreign language acquisition there has been no other field around. The big issue is that the market is changing and so are its needs. Institutional changes will affect its needs even more. What do we really know about our market and how do we cater for our big responsibility towards it?
Here comes the important role of the representatives of the field. Research and overall marketing of the field should be within the main duties of every association representing tens of professionals. So far the main role of the board of each association has been how to ensure the income of the association through the organisation of events and the examinations. There were also attempts to unify and standardise the market through regulating tuition fees, free lessons and fairness of competition, overlooking, however, the market reality. What is the point of restricting the potential competitive advantages of a member, when this member is being suffocated by the promotional tricks of non-members? What are the protection and competitive advantages that the association offers to this member? Is it the assurance of higher quality? The communication to the parents of what it really means to be a PALSO member? The communication to the parents of why the tuition fees are higher and what they cover? Maybe the communication about the damage that private lessons can do to a student under certain circumstances? Is it really strange that school owners’ interest in their associations is getting less and less, while new associations are being formed under the light of common targets such as better examining conditions or quality assurance?
The existing associations should redefine the dialogue they have been holding with the Greek community, but instead of addressing themselves to the State, they can now turn their heads to the market. Greeks have proven that they are willing to pay, as long as they know that what they pay for is worth it. The problem with parents is that they take frontisteria for granted, almost as much as the public schools. We take parents and what they know about us for granted, so, in their turn, they take us for granted as well.
The messages we have drawn from the year-long market research that was published in the last ELT News issue point out that the role of the associations should focus on the following issues:
a) Define from scratch a realistic and down to earth code of practice and quality for their members and most importantly communicate this code to the parents, with all the competitive advantages that this code gives them. A client must be very clear about his/her benefits. All international and local quality assurance schemes are of private initiative and their power solely lies on the communication and marketing behind them. The only nationally driven code is the criteria the State sets for the licence of operation of a frontisterio. Such movements of associations in the UK and Spain were pointed out in my letter to the federation last summer.
b) Set specific targets for the field that will point out the long experience, know-how and expertise obtained over the years and how these can prove to be useful for the creation of a national curriculum in co-operation with the State. However, for this to happen, the field must obtain the necessary communication power within the community, with serious research and use of existing resources, that will lead to informative campaigns in the public sector and further support.
c) Expose their members to realistic legal and financial developments and techniques that will contribute to their viability. There is no point in organising seminars and commercial presentations by business consultants introduced by local chambers, when the funding programmes they present do not include private FL schools. This is rather sadistic, especially when there are legal and financial transformation plans afoot that would legally qualify a school owner for funding from the EU.
d) Create a PR department that would gather information and rally the media to contribute to their communication plans.
e) Create a research department to specify know-how export opportunities. Our market is powerful but a little bit too small.
f) Realistically face the inevitable and make friends. A healthy State system will contribute to better national functions, the elimination of black economy for the community, the resetting of targets and the creation of a clearer landscape of needs in foreign language education. The private sector will become more diverse, research and competition will boost the quality of services and lead to specialisation according to geography and target markets. Then teaching, or better tutoring, will again become a respectable service worth paying for.
g) Create a long-term business and communication plan for each association and the federation, based on the criteria of private institutions, to ensure resources for research, action, mobility and eventually viability.
The above issues can form a guide of reform for the private sector as well. These are institutional changes that take a long time to bring about and even longer to fruit. However, we should look and plan ahead to create the foundations of a strong field that will be flexible enough to meet the challenges and changes of the future. Productivity and competitiveness are only trapped in Greece because of our ‘last minute’ nature. Last minute decisions make us late followers of foreign-driven developments. And I personally dread the idea of Greece turning into the Florida of Europe. A paradise for pensioners.
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