International Education Before and After COVID-19
Charles Ungerleider, Professor Emeritus, The
University of British Columbia
[permission
to reproduce granted if authorship is acknowledged]
The COVID-19
pandemic has reminded many Canadians of the quality of life we enjoy. Stable
and well functioning institutions (peace, order, and good government),
accessible health care, mostly high performing school systems, and the relative
absence of inequality. These are many of the elements that provincial
governments and local school boards use to recruit fee-paying, international
students to Canada.
International
student recruitment is highly competitive. British Columbia competes with other
provinces and with other nations for the relatively advantaged students who
seek or whose families seek for them an education outside of their home country.
British Columbia
has been competitive because of the quality of its schools and the safety and
care students enjoy. British Colombia’s
schools are less socially stratified than those of some other countries where
school ranking and examinations can determine one’s life chances.
The recruitment of
students from other countries makes schools more diverse, providing the
opportunity for Canadian students to be enriched through their contact with
international students and vice versa. In turn, students who successfully
complete a Canadian secondary school program can seek admission to
post-secondary study in Canada.
Recruiting
fee-paying international students to Canadian schools, and licensing off-shore
schools by provincial governments, are what one colleague describes as “asset
stripping” by which he means that Canada is stripping other countries of their
highly educated young people. By virtue of their Canadian education and
enculturation, some international students are more likely to seek to stay –
and most important – work in Canada. Those international students who choose to
stay help to increase the number of young, working, tax-paying Canadians upon
whom older, retired Canadians depend.
All good? Well,
that depends upon your standpoint. The more international students are educated
in Canada the less likely they are to maintain their heritage language and
culture. I know that this is something that most international students do not
realize. At least not initially. The parents of international students may
recognize the trade off and willingly sacrifice cultural maintenance for an
education that will enable their children to have a better life in a country
with the qualities Canadians enjoy.
COVID-19 makes the
situation a bit dicey for the teachers whose employment depends on international
students and for school boards and post-secondary institutions whose revenues
are significantly affected by international student enrollment. “COVID-19
hits teacher jobs in Coquitlam school district” read the April 10th
headline in the Tricity News. The subhead proclaims, “International
student enrolment expected to plummet in wake of global pandemic, layoffs
expected for the first time in three years for teachers in Port Coquitlam,
Coquitlam and Port Moody schools.” Coquitlam is one of three school boards in
BC - West Vancouver and Burnaby are the other two – where revenue from
international student tuition accounts for more than 10% of the board’s total
budgeted revenue.
The revenues
derived from recruiting and educating international students are substantial. The
approximately $35 million Coquitlam derives from international student revenues
is nearly equivalent to 12% of the money it receives from the basic grant from
the Ministry of Education. In West Vancouver, the proportion is 16% ($10
million); Burnaby is 11% ($24 million); Greater Victoria is 9% ($16 million). Overall,
international students probably account for about 800 teachers in BC, most of
whom work in secondary schools.
The tuition fees
charged to international students exceed the per pupil amount allocated by the
province for students from British Columbia, often by a significant margin.
Some are in the range of 140% to 160% of the Ministry of Education’s per pupil
allocation. While some of the difference can be attributed to additional
support that international students require (language assistance and
counselling, for example), some of the supports and services provided to local students
are being subsidized by international students.
The loss of revenue
will not be felt proportionally across school boards. More than half of the
provincial revenue from international student tuition is received by boards in
the metropolitan Vancouver region. Metro boards receive about four times as
much as the next region, Vancouver Island. Northern region boards receive about
1/160th of the revenue received by the metro boards.
In addition, the
impact will be disproportionate according to grade level. Approximately 85% of
the international student enrolment occurs at the secondary school level. The
proportion of international students increases from grade 8 to grade 12, with
approximately 50% of the international high school students at the grade 11 and
12 level.
The negative impact
of COVID-19 on the education of international students is likely to be
significant, causing substantial dislocation for them and their families. But,
as mentioned above, the impact will not be confined to international students.
Supports and services for students from British Columbia will also be affected.
The magnitude of the impact is difficult to gauge without knowing the nature of
the contingency plans that school boards have made for such an eventuality.
It is doubtful
that many parents know school boards are using unstable sources of revenue to fund
supports and services for students from British Columbia. They assume that the learning
supports their children receive are funded from their tax dollars. If revenues
diminish or disappear as appears to be the case in Coquitlam, school boards
must reduce staffing and programs. Entreaties to the provincial government to replace
the lost revenue from international programs are unlikely to succeed. Even if the
Province were positively disposed, which is improbable, facing significant
fiscal pressure because of COVID-19 it simply will not have the resources to
replace the lost revenue.