Under the pressure of strict supervision from the Chinese Communist government and facing a severe shortage of enrolment, the prestigious UK girls’ boarding school Wycombe Abbey School, also known as Wycombe Abbey School Nanjing, has been forced to close its new campus in Nanjing, China after only operating for five years.
Wycombe Abbey School Nanjing has informed parents of students that the campus will be closing at the end of the current academic year.
The branch was a day/boarding school that officially opened in September 2021, covering an area of about 123 acres with dormitories and a swimming pool, capable of accommodating over 2,000 students. Public data shows that around 400 to 550 students were enrolled at Wycombe Abbey School Nanjing around 2024-2025, with an occupancy rate of 20% to 25%; during the period from 2021 to 2023, the number of students was around 600, with an occupancy rate of less than 30%.
Students from Wycombe Abbey School Nanjing have the option to transfer to the group’s branch located in Changzhou, Jiangsu Province, known as Wycombe Abbey School Changzhou. Both schools are managed by BE Education, Wycombe Abbey School’s partner in Asia, responsible for admissions.
According to the Financial Times, Wycombe Abbey International stated that Wycombe Abbey School Nanjing faced multiple challenges including the initial outbreak of the pandemic, sudden changes in private education regulations by the Chinese government, strict enforcement by local authorities, and a cooling demand from Chinese nationals for Western higher education.
An individual familiar with Wycombe Abbey’s Asian operations mentioned that the board had evaluated the potential for future market growth, the regulatory agencies’ willingness to provide room for the school’s development, and the school’s ability to attract investments in the future. The source stated, “Unfortunately, the answers to all these questions were either ‘no’ or unknown to us.”
Many British private schools have authorized the establishment of branches in Asia in hopes of generating additional income. Wycombe Abbey School has opened a branch in Bangkok, with plans for another branch in Singapore in 2028. Incheon, South Korea also plans to establish a Wycombe Abbey branch in its economic free zone, leading Mayor Yoo Jeong-bok to visit the UK earlier this year.
Wycombe Abbey School Nanjing was a bilingual school that could admit both Chinese citizens and students with foreign passports. The school was founded with the intention of providing a British-style boarding school education for Chinese children, but local regulations in Nanjing required the school’s curriculum to be localized.
Regarding the Chinese regulatory system, local governments are the specific enforcement authorities, each with varying degrees of enforcement. Overall, the Nanjing local government enforces regulations more strictly compared to Changzhou and Hangzhou. This includes encouraging more students to take the Chinese standard exams rather than opting for international qualifications like A-levels and the International Baccalaureate (IB).
International schools operated by foreign institutions in China initially only enrolled foreign students, but later, amid market competition, began accepting Chinese students while adhering to Chinese curriculum requirements and avoiding sensitive content related to the Tiananmen Square incident and other issues related to the Chinese Communist Party.
In 2021, the Chinese authorities implemented new regulations to crack down on the education and training industry. In March 2021, the Chinese Ministry of Education issued new education evaluation guidelines, covering bilingual private schools where any school enrolling local Chinese students must comply with Chinese regulations.
These new regulations, effective in September 2021, extended the review system to these school systems, requiring international schools to teach the same curriculum as Chinese public schools from kindergarten to ninth grade. All private schools must now “uphold the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party.” These schools have faced the most severe impacts in this round of regulatory changes.
Subsequently, due to foreign nationals leaving after the pandemic and escalating geopolitical tensions, international school enrolment in China has generally decreased.
Furthermore, China’s economy continued to decline in recent years, accompanied by a sharp drop in birth rates. On January 19, the National Bureau of Statistics of China announced that in 2025, the country’s birth population was 7.92 million, lower than the 9.54 million in 2024, marking the lowest levels in decades. Additionally, China’s total population has decreased for the fourth consecutive year, with a reduction of 3.39 million people last year, the largest decline since the population started decreasing in 2022.
With China’s economy declining and birth rates plummeting in recent years, the shortage of students has had a profound impact on admissions, leading to the closure of well-known international schools.
In light of these challenges, prestigious international schools have faced closures as they struggled to navigate the evolving educational landscape and regulations in China.