City of Powell River and School District 47 officials welcomed visiting Chinese students with a banquet at the Future Chefs’ Cafe last week.
Thirty-three students from Beijing’s Sino Bright School arrived in Powell River on Monday, January 20, for a month-long educational and cultural experience. Sino Bright, a BC offshore school since 2004, offers Chinese students classes with BC curriculum taught by provincially certified teachers.
The visiting students were welcomed by Mayor Dave Formosa and Councillor Chris McNaughton, Vancouver Island University (VIU) Powell River campus principal Arlette Raaen and School District 47 superintendent of schools Jay Yule with a banquet prepared by the dual-credits culinary arts students at Brooks Secondary School. The program’s catering services coordinator Lori Alexander said the students felt some pressure to prepare the buffet-style meal for the event, “but rose to the challenge.”
Yule said that currently the district has a partnership with Sino Bright to offer shorter-term cultural and educational experiences in Powell River during summer and winter breaks for the students, but a deal which includes the city and VIU is being worked on to create an international high school for Chinese students based out of Powell River.
Students could then transition straight in to VIU.
“It’s imperative for us with our declining enrolment that we’d like to attract more fee-paying students,” said Yule at the board of education meeting on Tuesday, January 21. “That’s the grand plan, but we’re definitely not there yet.”
While here, the students participate in classes at Brooks doing academic coursework, but they also participate in outdoor activities and gain a range of cultural experiences, he said.
He expects there to be more Chinese students visiting this summer.
The students are staying with homestay families and Yule reported that some families have taken in two or three students at a time.
Quan Ouyang, executive director of Sino Bright School, said the plan would open up an international school at Oceanview Education Centre that would offer three-year programs of study for Chinese students and give the students a base to work that would have a Chinese homeroom teacher, similar to what they would have at school in China. Ouyang explained that having a home base at Oceanview will help some of the students make easier adjustments to student life in Canada and give more support than what they might receive if they had to navigate their classes alone.
The partnership could also help teachers, said Yule, especially those at the high school level, gain some overseas teaching experience and continue to build seniority in the BC system.
“We’re working on ways of having our teachers work in China if they’d like,” he said. “So it’s looking at how to make that happen because there is certainly a need.”
