GRAND plans to draw international students to Barnsley may not be bringing in the numbers hoped just yet but Barnsley College has another ace card - it is teaching A-levels in China.
Principal Colin Booth is confident the new venture will go some way to recruiting more foreign students through word of mouth.
Thirty students are starting A level programmes this September at the college's centre which is linked with Jinling High School - one of the most prestigious schools in Nanjing.
Students will be studying chemistry, maths and physics, as well as the International General Certificate of Secondary Education (IGCSE) in English.
The college is also opening a new centre in Tianjin which will be linked with Tianjin Yaohua Middle School – a famous school nationally in China.
Colin said: "A-levels are known around the world as a high value qualification and there is a market for it in China.
"We started delivering them last September with 35 students in one centre and have now more than doubled our first year cohort to 75."We've given 35 students a good experience for the last year, which makes selling coming here to other people easier because of word of mouth and we hope that will continue to develop."
It will invest £200,000 up to 2016 in developing the A-level centres and is hoping to expand the project across China and beyond, including centres in Indonesia and Vietnam from 2015.
