Daphne Bramham: China may soon be exporting education the Canadian way

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The Chinese Communist Party government aims to encircle the globe with roads, ports and other transportation infrastructure as part of its “Belt and Road Initiative” that may soon include the export of language and culture.

Leading the way is China’s largest private-school operator, a publicly traded company called China Maple Leaf Educational Services. It has deep ties to Canada and plans for “optimization” and “refinement” of the B.C. offshore schools program to become the largest private-school network in the world.

China’s initial foray into international education began in 2004 with the Confucius Institute, under the control of its education ministry. With 1,000 locations worldwide, it has attracted a lot of negative attention recently because of hiring practices, and for what is or isn’t being taught.

Governments in Australia, the U.S. and Eastern Europe have expressed concerns. Here, school boards and host universities have come under fire and ended their agreements.

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Others, such as the Coquitlam school board — the first in Canada to have a Confucius Institute — have held on. Last fall, however, Coquitlam did remove the Confucius Institute name. And now, instead of getting roughly $300,000 in annual grants from China’s education ministry, the Coquitlam Now reported the district’s money is coming from the South China Normal University.

Given the controversies, it’s not surprising that China’s 2.0 version of education export could be quite different. Nor is it surprising that it wants to extend its reach.

“Chinese schools abroad will multiply because China has means and they see themselves as being in broad competition with the West — especially the United States — for soft power,” said Gordon Houlden, director emeritus of the China Institute at the University of Alberta. “It’s also not an absolute given that the world’s lingua franca will continue to be English.”

He has no problem with Chinese language and culture being taught.

“Let the ideas, languages and cultures compete,” Houlden said. But he warns that countries allowing these schools will need to put in safeguards to ensure that Chinese Communist Party values aren’t part of the package.

A blueprint for expansion was laid out by China Maple Leaf chairman Shu Liang Sherman Jen in the company’s “Sixth Five-Year Plan” released last year.

“We can see the growing demand for bilingual English and Chinese education in ‘Belt and Road’ countries, where China and other countries are making strategic investments in infrastructure and development,” he said in the 2020 annual report.

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Jen has already received multiple awards from the People’s Republic of China, including the Outstanding Chinese Entrepreneur Award from the overseas Chinese affairs office in 2005, and the Friendship Award presented to him 2015 by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang for his “outstanding contribution” to the country’s modernization.

By 2025, Maple Leaf’s plan is to have more than 100,000 students registered in 10 countries — more than double the enrolment in 2019-20.

But the long-term goal is to “establish the largest global school system in the world that blends the best aspects of Eastern education and culture with Western educational content and methodologies.”

Currently, Maple Leaf has 114 schools in 23 Chinese cities, 14 in Malaysia, four in Singapore, and one in Australia. It has its own Kindergarten to Grade 12 curriculum that has been accredited by Cognia, a U.S.-based certification company that is the largest in the world.

Starting in June 2023, graduates will receive the Maple Leaf High School Graduation Diploma, which will replace the Dogwood certificate awarded at its 12 B.C.-accredited schools in China.

While individual schools have been accredited, Maple Leaf has yet to receive corporate accreditation and certification, according to Cognia’s website registry.

Still, the annual report says, “We are confident that World School Program will become a world-class program equivalent to A-Level and IB (international baccalaureate) program in the future.”

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The Maple Leaf trades on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, but, as the name suggests, its roots are in Canada.

Born in China, Jen emigrated to Vancouver in the 1992, although the annual report notes that he now lives in Hong Kong “for tax reasons”.

Jen was impressed with the schools here and saw the business potential for private schools in China. With the encouragement of then-Premier Mike Harcourt, Jen opened the first Maple Leaf school in 1995 in Dalian using the B.C. curriculum grafted to the Chinese education system.

Two years later, B.C.’s NDP government accepted his proposal for an offshore accredited school program and, in 1998, Maple Leaf’s Dalian school was the first to receive accreditation.

B.C. now has 46 accredited offshore schools in eight countries, including 12 Maple Leaf schools in China. 

At the time, James Beeke was B.C. inspector of independent schools. But in 2005, he quit, moved to China to work for Maple Leaf, and is now its executive director in charge of global education.

His successor as independent school inspector was Susanne Penner. She quit in 2009, joining Maple Leaf as its superintendent until 2012 when she set up as a consultant with Maple Leaf among her clients.

In 2013, Jen received an honorary doctorate from Royal Roads University in Victoria. Five years later, in partnership with Maple Leaf, Royal Roads developed an English-Mandarin master of arts degree in international educational leadership that won an award in 2018 from the B.C. Council for International Education.

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That year, the university officially opened the Sherman Jen Building, to which Jen had contributed $7 million. It also awarded him an honorary doctorate in 2013.

Since 2016, Maple Leaf has schools in Canada on the campuses of Thompson Rivers University, Kwantlen Polytechnic University, and at Lakehead University in Ontario, which hosts Maple Leaf’s “future teachers’ program.”

Jen has given generously to both Thompson Rivers ($5 million in 2017) and Kwantlen ($3 million earlier this month). There is also a Sherman Jen library at Crofton House, the elite, Vancouver girl’s school.

If Jen is successful, the Maple Leaf name could soon be a global brand.

But these will not be Canadian schools. Despite the name, they will be influenced, if not regulated, by China, as well as its tough new private-school law that forbids teaching anything that disrupts the social order, and makes owners liable for fines and even jail time.

Of course, the law also promises great rewards to those who provide outstanding service to the Communist Party.

dbramham@postmedia.com

Twitter: @bramham_daphne

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