At The PIE Live Europe 2026 in March, Sir Steve Smith revealed the Office and Cabinet Workplace will be members of ESAG, the ministerially led committee that will create action strategies to provide the UK’s worldwide education strategy. Now, the federal government has launched the full list of core members, along with further advisory members.
ESAG combines government, industry and agents from throughout the education sector to attend to crucial obstacles and recognize partnership chances.
The sector will play a central function in providing the technique through action plans, set to be established and released within the very first 100 days of the group’s inaugural conference, which happened in April.
Core members will participate in all ESAG meetings and lead the development of sector action plans, in collaboration with advisors. Advisers attend subgroup conferences arranged by the core membership and deliver delegated aspects of the sector action plans.
The core ESAG members are:
- Chair, UK Abilities Collaboration
- Chief executive, Early Years Alliance
- President, National Association for Special Educational Needs (NASEN)
- Director, Universities UK International (UUKi)
- Deputy director general, British Educational Providers Association (BESA)
- President, English UK
- CEO, Independent Schools Council (ISC)
ESAG members taking an advisory function are:
- Association of British Schools Overseas (AoBSO)
- Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL)
- British Association of Independent Schools with International Trainees (BAISIS)
- British Council
- British Education Travel Association (BETA)
- Cambridge University Press Assessment (CUPA)
- Council of British International Schools (COBIS)
- ECCTIS
- IDP
- Independent College
- Pearson
- Quality Assurance Company
- Study Group/Destination for Education
- Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS)
- UK Council for International Student Affairs (UKCISA)
A number of government representatives are joining ESAG, in addition to cross-government departments and degenerated federal governments:
- Sir Steve Smith, UK global education champion
- Department for Organization and Trade (DBT)
- Department for Education (DfE)
- Foreign, Commonwealth and Advancement Office (FCDO)
- Northern Ireland
- Scotland
- Wales
Additional government departments joining are:
- Cabinet Workplace
- Home Office/UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI)
- Department for Science, Development and Innovation (DSIT)
- Department for Work and Pensions (DWP)
According to the UK government, “choice of members to the ESAG will be based on keeping numbers to a minimum whilst making it the most efficient group it can be”.
In January 2026, the UK federal government revealed a new– and long-awaited– worldwide education technique, consisting of an ambitious objective to grow education exports to ₤ 40 billion per year by 2030, with growth expected to come from TNE, ELT, abilities and edtech.
The method looks to manage sustainable overseas trainee recruitment and enhance the UK’s worldwide standing through education– consisting of a concentrate on cutting red tape for TNE collaborations abroad.
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