2012-School District 91 has established a new business company that will offer educational programming overseas in an effort to increase enrolment and stimulate economic development throughout northern BC. The new business company will operate the first of its British Columbia certified secondary schools in Xianghe and Beijing, China, under the name Canadian Pathways.
Already, these schools in Xianghe and Beijing have been twinned with Lakes District Secondary School in Burns Lake, and Nechako Valley Secondary School in Vanderhoof to develop cooperative exchange programs. These relationships are essential to the implementation of programs that will allow Chinese students to complete their secondary education in northern BC while others will be able to do so at their home school in China. One of the goals is to have students achieve a considerable understanding of Canada, its culture and how our two nations, China and Canada, can work together.
School District 91’s new business company is required to operate as an independently financed and administered enterprise from the Board of Education which by legislation must be its sole shareholder. Under this program, Chinese students pay tuition fees to attend BC certified offshore schools in order to graduate with a BC dogwood diploma and thereby qualify for admission to North American universities. Revenues from the tuition fees will flow directly to the School District 91 Business Company to cover all operating costs and a per student royalty. Once all start up loans have been repaid, profits will be returned to School District 91 Nechako Lakes, allowing the secondary schools to improve, enhance, and expand educational programs and facilities for domestic students in northern BC.
The initiative has received letters of support from the Province of BC, the Regional District of Bulkley-Nechako, local governments in Burns Lake, Vanderhoof, Fort St. James, and Fraser Lake, and from ten other school districts including Prince George, Peace River South, Cariboo-Chilcotin, Quesnel, Prince Rupert, Peace River North, Haida Gwaii, Kamloops/Thompson, Powell River and Bulkley Valley. In addition to this support, the School District 91 Business Company has received seed funding from Northern Development Initiative Trust and Community Futures Development Corporation.
A 2012 summer camp in Xianghe, to be housed at the Grand Epoche Cultural City has been organized for students and educators from the district. An August, BC summer camp visit by twenty Chinese students and ten teachers from the Beijing sister school has been approved by the Chaoyang Beijing Education Bureau. These camps allow students and teachers to further their education, while exposing them to the diverse cultures of northern BC and China. Canadian Pathways Schools will offer English Language Learning programs to build fluency and facilitate instruction in English of the BC certified curriculum to its students.
The first of the Canadian Pathways Schools is presently going through minor renovations and outfitting for Canadian style classrooms in advance of inspection by BC Ministry Officials for its grand opening in September, 2012 at Xianghe No. 1 (public) High School. A second school within the program is planned to open in September 2013 within the sister school in Beijing, and a third school is being built by Chinese developers who have asked the School District No 91 Business Company to open it in September 2014.
