It’s Saturday afternoon at a boarding school in the English countryside. Do you notice that stylish group of middle-aged adults of Asian descent, cheering on their cricketers? They might be parents, but don’t let the Gucci sunglasses fool you—they could also be professional guardians.
It’s a cottage industry borne of one of Great Britain’s most illustrious services: the private education of the world’s wealthiest children. Eton College, Harrow School, Winchester College—the most prestigious boarding schools are hotly coveted by the international elite, an even more alluring status symbol than a Birkin bag.
As tuition has increased—Eton’s is now an eye-watering $88,000 per year—the schools have become increasingly reliant on those who can pay full freight. In 2024, according to the Independent Schools Council, 11.2 percent of the country’s private-school students were not native to the U.K. The parents of 26,195 of them lived overseas, and 10,899 students came from China and Hong Kong alone. In a recent survey, 77 percent of Chinese parents said their decision to send their children to a British boarding school was based on the desire to provide a more “well-rounded” education than what was available back home.
In the U.K., the boarding-school system generally starts in third grade for boys and sixth grade for girls. So, who’s going to collect an eight-year-old boy struck down with norovirus from the nurse’s office at Summer Fields, in Oxford? Paging the guardian!
Theoretically, this role could be filled by a family friend or relative, but it’s a big ask. Basic responsibilities include being on call 24-7 for illness and emergencies, coordinating travel home for holidays, and transporting and hosting students for mandatory weekends away from school.
The Association for the Education and Guardianship of International Students, an accreditation organization, has a list of 63 “gold standard” agencies that thoroughly vet each guardian and promise to find the perfect fit for your child. Some have fancy (and ambitious) names such as Oxbridge Guardians, a company that works exclusively with Chinese families and touts its staff’s “highly academic backgrounds.”
Bournemouth-based White House Guardians, established by educators Jane and Duncan Hume in 1992, is a more homespun affair. It’s now run by their son, Will Hume. Most of his clients live in Asia, so they purchase what Hume calls an “enhanced guardianship package.” In addition to the basics, guardians will buy gifts for teachers, attend conferences, plan birthday parties, and even take a child out for hot chocolate when he or she is having what the Brits call “a bit of a wobble.” That could be anything from mild homesickness to clinical depression.
Hume generally employs one guardian in each region of the U.K., and some of them handle up to 40 students. He also works with a network of 450 host families (also fully vetted) across England, Scotland, and Wales who care for children during longer stays, such as the one- or two-week “half-term” breaks in October and May.
Hume’s business is generated by a global network of agents who help foreign families apply to English boarding schools and coordinate the logistics upon enrollment. On average, a guardian costs an additional $13,000 per year. (The “European package,” for parents who can reach the U.K. by a short flight, is considerably less.)
Caroline Drewett, the managing director of the London-based agency Belgravia Guardians, works with several hundred students, primarily from Asia. Her youngest ward is an eight-year-old girl. “There’s a particularly big cultural side to [our work],” she says. “Asian parents have an expectation on what the school offers that is very different to what a British boarding school offers. There’s not as much hand-holding as you would get if you were in a school in Hong Kong or in China. So we have to try and help the parents understand the cultural differences and nuances.” In many instances, families request guardians with a shared ethnicity, especially if they are contending with a language barrier.
Drewett tends to recruit from the educational sector, hiring former teachers or staff members at boarding schools, whom, she says, “tell their friends, who tell their friends, and we get a kind of network.”
The guardian system has worked efficiently for decades. The writer (and Air Mail Columnist) Pico Iyer retains fond memories of his days at the Dragon School, in Oxford, and Eton during the 70s. His parents, who were living in Santa Barbara, appointed one of their closest college friends (a London banker) as Iyer’s guardian.
“He took me to exhibitions at the British Museum and the new film of Lost Horizon, with, excitingly, his younger daughter, the first young woman I’d seen in months,” recalls Iyer, who often stayed at the family’s home in Regent’s Park. “I’m sure my parents, 6,000 miles away, felt much better knowing that their trusted friend was nearby should any problem arise, although it never did.”
The guardian system’s biggest test came during the pandemic. “We had some children that didn’t see their parents for three years, which is just crazy,” says Drewett. “There was a 21-day hotel quarantine in Hong Kong, and children weren’t allowed on their own.... People just didn’t do it, and lots of children ended up staying with host families.”
Thanks to the new Labour government, the guardian economy is now contending with another threat. A 20 percent V.A.T., or value-added tax, was applied to most school tuition starting in January. Coupled with an economic slowdown in Asia—to say nothing of the impending trade wars—the new economics have inspired some foreign families to reconsider the entire proposition of an English education.
Especially since many top schools have opened satellite locations in these markets. Downe House, a girls’ school in Berkshire attended by Kate Middleton, now operates a branch in Oman. Charterhouse, founded in 1611, now brings a taste of Surrey to its new location in Lagos. (Facilities are “five-star,” according to its Web site.)
But no expansion-minded school can top Harrow, which now operates 11 franchises in Asia. “[Tuition] is not even half of what you pay if you were going to Harrow [in the] U.K.,” says Drewett. “If you were to go as a day student, it’s even less. And then on top of that, you’ve got the flight costs, the guardian costs, the visa fees, the other hosting fees.... Plus, you’re not seeing your child.”
But can such luxurious satellite campuses carry the old-world social capital of their drafty, creaky English mother ships? And how can such close-to-home options offer that quintessential product of English boarding schools—abandonment?
Ashley Baker is a Deputy Editor at AIR MAIL and a co-host of the Morning Meeting podcast