Guardianship

The overwhelming majority of boarding schools and colleges make it obligatory to have an education guardian available in the country of education for all foreign students under the age of 18, whose parents live abroad permanently. The local guardian acts as the link between the school and the student’s parents, who often do not speak the language of the country their child is studying in. The guardian is functionally responsible for resolving all issues related to student performance, behavior and health, as well as for assistance in possible emergency situations. Plainly put, the guardian performs the basic organizational functions of the parents in their absence, and much more than that.

The guardian provides an additional degree of calm and confidence to parents, being a specialist specifically assigned to help solve possible difficulties of their child. Such situations are surprisingly plentiful. The flight may be delayed or arrive / depart at inconvenient times – the guardian will meet his ward or see him off. A student may be suspended from classes for several days for misbehavior or for medical reasons. In this case, the school asks the guardian to pick up the student for a period of time, usually 3-5 days. The school itself may run into unexpected technical problems with electricity or heating, in which case all students must leave school until the problem is resolved. According to our experience, guardian services might be required more often than initially expected.

The educational guardian performs many important functions for the educational process – monitoring the child’s education process and his overall well-being, attending parent meetings and other related events. A guardian can also take his wards out for special weekends outside of school (exeat weekends) – this usually happens several times during a semester, as well as host them on holidays, arrange transfers to the airport on the days of arrival and departure, and much more.

We have extensive experience in providing such services. In some cases, our guardians become literally “family assistants”. We have been working with some families for many years, until all the children in the family went to university. Often we continue to supervise them after children reach the age of 18, when the guardian is technically no longer needed.