Two of the world's most buccaneering education entrepreneurs have teamed up to build 60 multi-million dollar schools in leading cities across the world.
The network of high-end international schools will cater for the children of a mobile elite of bankers, diplomats and senior executives who regularly have to uproot their families.
With annual fees of between $15,000 and $40,000 depending on the city, the plan marks a serious departure for Chris Whittle, the former media entrepreneur famous for starting the Edison Schools company which runs schools in some of the most deprived areas of the US.
His new venture, Nations Academy, has been jointly set up with Sunny Varkey, chairman of the Dubai-based company Global Education Management Systems, which runs private schools around the world.
Mr Whittle said the new schools would be designed to meet the needs of parents in both the west and fast-developing nations like India and China.
Families that relocate from, for example, China to London, will be guaranteed a place in another Nations school that will run a very similar curriculum.
Children will be able to join at the age of three and stay until they are 18. As well as being suitable for mobile parents, the school network will aim to appeal to parents wanting to give their children an international outlook. Mr Whittle said all pupils would be expected to do four stints in sister schools in other parts of the world.
"If you look at parents in western society, there is a real interest in their children having an education that gives them substantial exposure to the east. That is particularly true in the US where parents realise that their children will have to grow up understanding lots of other values than just US ones.
"The flipside of that is in India and China, where there's an expectation that children will go abroad for their higher education. Students need to be prepared for that."
The costs of the ambitious plan are likely to vary sharply between cities. The company said it expects to spend $50m per campus in some regions but up to $150m in cities with very high land prices, such as London.
All the schools, which will not take boarders, will have capacity for 1,500 pupils.
The first is expected to open in 2010 but the full network of 60 will not be complete for another 10-12 years.
The company would not reveal the level of funding it has secured but said it had enough money in place for the initial work.
The company has been holding discussions with commercial property developers around the world, in a bid to find suitable campuses.
Mr Whittle's record in education has been mixed and controversial. The former media entrepreneur and owner of Esquire magazine turned his attention to improving some of the US's worst schools by setting up Edison School company to run Charter Schools. In 1999 investors flocked to his idea of a for-profit management company that would improve academic standards in US public schools and make money. But the company became a focus for opposition from teachers' unions and made heavy losses.
