Most Canadians are familiar with stories about international students. Post-secondary institutions, struggling to make ends meet during times of declining government support and, in some cases, frozen tuition rates for domestic students, have chosen to charge hefty tuition fees for international students to compensate for institutional financial challenges.
Media attention has alternated between empathetic and critical. For several years, stories of exploitation by unethical recruiters and students living in substandard housing aroused our sympathy. Then, when a shortage of affordable housing became a national concern, the conversation shifted focus to blame these same students for the crisis.
But not all international students are studying in post-secondary schools. In fact, some 60,000 study permits are issued annually to K-12 students from around the world. While this figure includes children whose parents have temporary work permits, and those here for a short term “study abroad” experience, a majority of K-12 international students are enrolled in long term educational programs to obtain a Canadian high school diploma.
Many K-12 international students study at private institutions where everyone pays tuition. Indeed, there are schools in larger centres such as the Greater Toronto Area and the Lower Mainland of British Columbia whose entire enrolment consists of fee-paying students from abroad. However, particularly in the past 31 20 years, international students have been actively recruited to study in our publicly funded schools—from one end of the country to the other. According to the Canadian Association of Public Schools—International (CAPS-I) there are 30,000 long term K-12 international students currently enrolled in their member schools.
It’s a small group in comparison to the post-secondary cohort, but these numbers are significant, and they are trending upwards. For those of us who value a publicly funded system that offers free quality education for all, this raises some concerns.
The practice of recruiting K-12 international students began in British Columbia in the 1980s and has increased in momentum: today every province is engaged in the activity. A quick Google search reveals most school boards have “international education” pages on their websites, highlighting the quality of their education and encouraging students from abroad to experience the benefits of a Canadian education—with a particular emphasis on learning English (or French to a lesser extent).
Many public boards of education are members of the CAPS-I or similar provincial organizations that market Canada as a destination and collectively recruit students from abroad. They also share programmatic knowledge about issues such as the provision of insurance and home care support for students who are away from their families. In a sense, they both collaborate and compete against each other in the lucrative international student market.
Provincial governments across the country support these initiatives and emphasize the positive economic impact on school districts and their local communities and the educational benefits for international students and their domestic peers in the schools who host them. The financial incentives are certainly evident: international students pay as much as $18,000 a year in some school boards. And those fees add up. In 2017, Alberta reported that K-12 international student spending (including long- and short-term stays) and their visiting friends and relatives generated an output of $66.4 million dollars. In British Columbia, international students paid $256,829,0941 in tuition to BC public school districts in the 2017–18 school year.
However, increased reliance on earned revenue from external sources is a risky way to maintain financial stability in a system that is, in theory, publicly funded. The flow of fee-paying students from abroad is subject to market disruption based on government regulation, geo-politics and, as we have seen, global health issues. During the pandemic, the number of K-12 international students decreased dramatically, even though many schools pivoted to offering online options as a stopgap measure. According to the International Consultants for Education and Fairs (ICEF) most schools bounced back to 80 percent of their pre-pandemic enrolments by 2022-23, but the pandemic certainly exposed a weakness in the model. In addition, despite concerted recruitment efforts to diversify the market, most international students come from a handful of countries with China by far the largest source.
There are other elements of the financial picture that are concerning. Public funding for education is based on the premise that all students have equitable access to resources. However, the revenue from international students is not distributed equally. For the most part, boards and schools in large urban communities are much more successful at attracting students.
For example, in 2019, a British Columbia funding review noted that international student revenues, used to enhance programming in schools, was distributed unevenly across the province with school districts in Vancouver and Victoria benefiting the most. In the same province, researchers have noted that legislation allowing school boards to establish for profit companies to recruit students was passed at the same time the government cut provincial support for public education and downloading costs onto school districts. A similar pattern exists in Ontario, with large boards in the GTA attracting thousands of international students, and smaller numbers choosing to study in other areas across the province.
The distribution of international students within school boards is also uneven. For example, in the school board where I taught, international students tended to be clustered in schools with low enrolment that offered English as a Second Language (ESL) programs to an already linguistically diverse student population. In 2020, when I was conducting my research, well over 10 percent of the population of my school comprised fee paying students. Their tuition fees, however, do not go to the schools that host them—the revenue is spread throughout the board.
Beyond the question of who reaps the economic benefits is a concern about access to the benefits of the “international education” initiative. A study in Manitoba and my own dissertation research found that parents and families primarily send their children to Canada to master English proficiency and gain access to post-secondary studies in a North American institution. While many of them make huge financial sacrifices to afford this, they are members of a global middle class who have advantages unavailable to most. They are buying their children an opportunity to gain skills that will make them more competitive in the global marketplace. It’s not an option for most people—in Canada or abroad.
As for their educational experiences, international students in our public schools receive varying levels of support. Programmatically, the level of government involvement varies. In Nova Scotia, a centralized international student program recruits and places students in schools across the province. In Manitoba, a Legislative Act intending to protect international students and ensure the quality of the province’s reputation as a provider of international education was passed in 2016.
Recent studies, however, suggest that governments and boards of education are more interested in the financial gains than the educational outcomes of the project. In Ontario, where there is very little provincial oversight, many boards of education are members of the Ontario Association of School Districts International. The organization advises its members on best practices, but there are no binding policies. Other schools pursue their international education agenda independently.
Most public school boards have international education offices that focus on recruitment and, to some extent, provide non-academic support for the students. In some cases, guidance counselors are trained in issues specific to the international student population, such as study permit renewals and (paid) health insurance programs. However, this support is often limited. In my school, there was one itinerant counselor for international students—shared with nine other schools. In a study of several school boards in Ontario that host students, administrators commented that they largely relied on existing guidance and ESL teachers at the schools to attend to the international students’ academic and linguistic needs.
While many international students are high academic achievers, they are also a vulnerable population. Not surprisingly, many suffer from linguistic, social and emotional isolation. They live away from their immediate families, often in homestays—where English is spoken, and daily routines and foods may be unfamiliar—at a formative time in their lives. In the classroom, they often struggle with linguistic barriers, new academic routines and the challenge of fitting in.
Of course, classroom teachers generally strive to meet the needs of all their students. I would wager that few make a distinction between who is paying a fee and who is publicly funded—in fact they may not know. Still, if an international student requires additional supports that are not provided directly by the school/board and funded by their tuition revenues, what is a teacher to do? Does the students’ tuition entitle them to fewer, the same, or more benefits than their publicly funded peers? The ethical issues are complex and difficult to isolate when the lines between public and private become blurred.
In theory and sometimes in practice, schools are places where diversity and inclusivity flourish. Some boards, schools and individual teachers employ programs and teaching strategies to encourage the intercultural experiences of their students and create lively and inclusive environments. However, this is not a given. Studies indicate that international students largely reach out to students from the same country, or other newcomer students facing similar linguistic and cultural barriers. This is understandable; wouldn’t most of us do the same if we were studying abroad? International students who participated in my dissertation research reported that they developed friendships with “Canadian” students late in their study terms, if at all.
The presence of students from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds in our public school system has the potential to create positive learning experiences and prepare students for living in an increasingly global community. The question is whether these aspirational goals are being met by an initiative that seems largely focused on generating revenue.
Given the precarity of funding, inequities in access, and the cost of providing adequate care and education of the students, there are many reasons to question whether the practice of recruiting fee paying students is a viable or ethical solution to the chronic underfunding of education.
