By Baroness Jacqui Smith

The UK’s world-class education and skills offer overseas brings roughly the same to our economy as exporting cars and is worth more than food and drink.

It brings in a whopping £32 billion per year, making it one of this country’s most valuable exports. But we’re setting sights higher, and backing our leading schools, colleges and universities to maximise the potential international markets offer.

In the International Education Strategy, launched today, we’ve set a bold new target for the UK’s education system to generate £40bn per year by 2030.

This amount isn’t a tweak to the system, it is a significant cog in the economic renewal promised by this government in our Plan for Change.

Just in education terms, that could theoretically be around £4,500 per pupil in England, and it could fund 800,000 teachers for a year.

More widely, it will drive local jobs and support........

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