BEIJING - Despite recent international education industry concerns that the expansion of China’s universities will eat into western schools’ overseas student market share, a talk with Chinese students and parents at an international school near Beijing reveals Canada will remain a strong draw for the foreseeable future to those who can afford it.
That’s because cities like Vancouver and Toronto – as well as countries like Australia, New Zealand and Great Britain – are attractive to students looking to escape a more rigid Chinese education system dominated by an all-encompassing exam at the end of high school; they are also attractive to their parents as immigration destinations.
That was the case with construction/real estate businessman Yang Qin, who sent his 15-year-old son, Nick, to New Zealand for one month ostensibly to pursue a western education, but also to pave the way for immigration. With Nick now attending an international school in China that uses the B.C. curriculum, the family’s sights have moved to Canada.
“With New Zealand, the original plan was to immigrate there,” said Yang during an interview at the Maple Leaf International High School in Tianjin’s port area, some 165 kilometres southeast of Beijing. “But the most important thing is Nick, and Nick didn’t like it. So we looked at our options here in Tianjin, and there were British schools and Swedish schools, but Nick really liked the Maple Leaf school when we visited. So here we are.”
Officials at Maple Leaf – which began operations in China in 1995 and now includes more than 70 schools throughout the country – said the schools’ continuously strong enrolment is a good indication that Chinese interest in Canadian and B.C. schools has not diminished.
That’s because Chinese students who choose local international schools do not take the national high school exam (Gaokao) that determines which college a Chinese student will attend and – often – how prestigious a job they can land upon graduation.
That means that almost all of the Tianjin Maple Leaf International High School’s 1,500 students will go abroad for college, and school officials say half eventually choose Canadian schools due to the students’ familiarity with the B.C. curriculum, culture and teaching methods. Mona Tan, a Maple Leaf teacher and principal, said demand for enrolment in Maple Leaf schools remains strong, even though the Tianjin location charges annual per-student tuition of 10,000 renminbi ($1,936.70), a significant burden for residents of a city where the average net salary is around $50,000.
“The parents want their children to go overseas to study; that’s why they put them here at Maple Leaf,” said Tan. “And the children usually have a very good academic foundation, because the parents have to pay quite a bit of tuition.”
Attendees at the recent BC Council for International Education’s (BCCIE) summer summit in Vancouver expressed concerns that China’s increased investment in its own colleges and universities will, over the long term, draw other foreign students and Chinese domestics. That would turn China – which has driven global international education as the biggest origin country for students – into a “net importer,” possibly with dire consequences for schools in markets like Canada that have benefited from Asia’s outbound international student wave.
But there’s no indication in China that the outbound student wave will subside any time soon.
China-based international banker Steve Katiyapong said his bank has already processed 1,500 accounts for Chinese students going to Canada to study in 2018’s first five months. It’s the bank’s largest client demographic by a significant margin. The leading trend, Katiyapong said, is that students studying abroad are getting younger.
“The youngest we have is six,” he said. “And there are 12- and 13-year-olds. So the trend is for them to go in the earlier stages and board or stay with family and friends… [China’s public school system] is very much centred around one examination; everything else, starting from kindergarten, is a preparation for that examination. It’s very rigid, and – while the government, to their credit, has been trying for years to modernize the system – as long as that entrance exam issue is there, I don’t think much is going to change.”
That pressure on students, Yang said, was a key reason he was finding options like New Zealand and Canada for Nick.
“After Nick started at Maple Leaf, I’ve noticed that there’s a change in the way he studies. He’s doing much more of it because he’s learning that he enjoys learning, and that’s very different from what his friends who went to the public school system are experiencing. I’m so proud of him and the way the Canadian curriculum fosters independent decision-making.”
One parent said that continued interest in Canadian schools from Chinese students might also have been helped in recent years by the dropping reputation of the United States as a student destination.
“We chose the school because it’s just down the street from our house,” said Liu Jian, whose daughter, Aimee, is a Grade 11 student at Maple Leaf in Tianjin. “But it was also important that Aimee likes the school and where it could take her. We asked her, ‘Do you want to go to an American school and go to the United States for college?’ She said, ‘No, because there are guns there.’”
Liu – an entrepreneur – added that many Chinese parents, while looking at places like Canada to immigrate, will also more-than-likely stay in China if they are not keen to fade into retirement. He noted that Canada – because of the high number of Chinese citizens who already moved to, or have had extensive experience in, cities like Vancouver and Toronto – has gained a reputation among China’s middle-class circles as “very clean, very green and very boring.”
Yang said the plan is eventually for Nick to return to China.
“We are not trying to escape the Gaokao. We are trying to maximize Nick’s talents, and we wanted to do it in a setting where Nick can freely pursue that in a western education system that has been well established in its traditions for centuries. The goal is to come back to China eventually so Nick can serve as a bridge between countries; maybe he can bring what he learned back to Tianjin, to help other Chinese students.”
School administrator Tan presented herself as another such example. She was a Maple Leaf graduate and a University of British Columbia alumna before returning to China for work.
And banker Katiyapong noted that the Chinese economy’s draw – much like the draw of Canada’s educational landscape and quality of life – will continue to attract families like the Yangs and the Lius that are caught between two systems.
“To most Chinese, the future is pretty much still in China,” Katiyapong said. •
This report is part of Business in Vancouver’s participation in the Canada China Business Council media fellowship, which includes flight, meal and accommodation costs in China.
