West Vancouver is soaring above other school districts when it comes to attracting international students, but that success has given it an unfair advantage, according to the province's teachers.
In the 2010-2011 school year, the West Vancouver school district earned nearly $8 million in international student tuition. This added "more than 15 per cent to the district budget over the funding provided by the B.C. government," according to a report published Wednesday by the B.C. Teachers' Federation. The figure was five times the average other districts gained from international education fees. The effect is to exacerbate an already yawning disparity, according to the authors.
"(West Vancouver) is a district that already has the advantage of a population with among the highest incomes in Canada," they wrote. "This extra funding allows the district to offer more opportunities than can be offered anywhere else in the B.C. public school system."
That may in turn be drawing students from neighbouring communities. Provincial policy dictates that funding follows them there, further accelerating the process.
While the vast majority of B. C's school districts have seen declining student numbers in recent years, enrolment has been growing in West Vancouver since 2005, bolstered by students coming from other districts, including its closest neighbour. Approximately 1,000 students attending West Vancouver schools come from elsewhere. Superintendent Chris Kennedy estimates 80 per cent of them come from North Vancouver, and he attributed the district's attractiveness in part to the windfall from its international program, noting the whole district benefits from the fees
"I think the community understands that things like having teacher librarians in our school and music specialists in our school, in part we're able to . . . do those things because we have such a vibrant international education program," said Kennedy.
Boosting headcount helps further boost its appeal, he noted.
"Sustaining enrollment is always a good thing, because if your enrolment is declining you're in a state of reducing services," said Kennedy.
"When you're a growing district you're able to add services," he said. "Rather than saying, 'Well, we're down 100 students, what can we cut?'"
But Susan Lambert, president of the BCTF, doesn't see that process as a good thing when other parts of the province are suffering. She said schools shouldn't be run as a business in the first place.
"We shouldn't have to put on programs and hire administrators to go to China to bring in revenue," said Lambert. "That's not educationally a sound purpose, and we shouldn't be spending our resources to do that."
Kennedy defended the program, though, saying it can benefit the province as a whole. West Vancouver is eager to spread its expertise with other districts, he said, and has been in talks with other school districts about building a "B. C. brand" that could be sold abroad. Representatives from 12 other school districts recently went to China to try to sell a B.C. education to students there.
"We can't take any more students. We're kind of maxed out; we have room for about 500 and we can't grow it," said Kennedy. "But we have a role to play in growing international education."
The North Vancouver school district did not respond by press time.
