Despite overseas arrivals to South Africa showing a 16% increase year on year for the first quarter of this year, there was a 10% drop in students coming to study English in South African language schools in the first few months of 2016. At least two schools in Cape Town are alleged to have closed down due to declining student numbers. Meanwhile, countries including Australia and New Zealand are seeing an increase in arrivals from English language learners.

The decline is being attributed to the implementation of the new immigration laws that consider current accreditations held by schools teaching English as foreign language (EFL) as insufficient to obtain study visas for students.

In 2015, EduSA – the national association of quality English language centres in South Africa – reported that 7 336 students visited South Africa. Year to date, the number of students has dropped by a confirmed 10% and, more concerning, it is still dropping.

According to Mark Boekstein of the Department of Geography at the University of the Western Cape, who has conducted research into the EFL industry, students spend an average of 6.2 weeks in the country, but visas are a major problem and more and more students wanting to learn English are opting for other countries.

“If one looks at global figures then countries like Australia and New Zealand are showing an upturn in their figures in 2016,” he said recently at a tourism research workshop held in Cape Town. “It simply means that our clients are going elsewhere.”

Boekstein said educational tourism as a concept was growing the world over and learning was becoming an important part of the tourist experience. With about 1.4 million EFL students worldwide, it has been identified as a segment that offers great potential to the economy, but instead of encouraging more students to local shores, he said, the immigration requirements were proving to be doing exactly the opposite.

“South Africa was only drawing about 2% of the global market as it was and now our figures are dropping,” he said.

Boekstein says, under new legislation, EFL institutions are no longer considered accredited institutions. “Educational tourists travelling to South Africa to learn English require a study visa. To get this visa the traveller needs a letter from an accredited institution that will be providing the training. EFL institutions are no longer considered to be accredited, making it impossible to obtain a visa.”

He said much was happening between the industry and government officials with ongoing talks to address and iron out the problem but in the meantime not only was the industry losing business, but thousands of potential students were choosing other destinations.

A further issue has been the extension of visas.

Students wanting to extend their visas need to return to the country of origin and apply for a visa extension there and, once it is granted, can return to South Africa. “It’s just not a practical requirement for a long-haul destination like South Africa,” said an industry source.

He told Tourism Update that the fight for recognition had been ongoing since 2004 when meetings were first held with government in attempts to recognise language schools and the value they add to the tourism conversation, but very little had been gained.

“We have been sent from pillar to post since then and the new law simply shows there is no understanding of the concept or the value of EFL,” he said. “It is clear if we look at the declining figures that we have to find a solution before it is too late.”

But, he said, it was nearly impossible to explain to officials that EFL schools were not your average, ordinary education institution. “We are not attracting the poor student who has no money. This kind of tourism experience is not cheap. It costs more to go to a language school in any particular country for a few weeks than to go to university for a year. Growing EFL tourism has huge monetary benefit for the country – these are people with money wanting to spend it locally.”

He said, as an example, the tiny island of Malta had realised the potential of EFL tourism and was drawing some 57 000 tourists in this sector annually.

“That is more than the population itself, while English is not even the island’s first language. We are missing the point and the opportunity in South Africa completely.”