B.C.’s education system is a mind-boggling $4.8-billion enterprise involving 60 school districts, approximately 1,600 schools, tens of thousands of teachers and hundreds of thousands of students.
And currently, the education curriculum is being revised. How do you navigate the system to get the best education for your child?
One Coquitlam entrepreneur is trying to make it easier with a new online venture called My Education Room (www.myeducationroom.com) that enables certified B.C. teachers to provide webinars on educational topics for students whose parents sign them up for the lesson for a small fee.
My Education Room was launched this month as students went back to school by Rick Pasin, who previously worked in the post-secondary administration field and came up with the idea while on honeymoon nine years ago with his wife, an ESL teacher.
“This is not about replacing the K-to-12 curriculum and teachers, it’s about augmenting what’s already being taught,” said Pasin, who is also president of the Tri-Cities Chamber of Commerce.
“There is a deep pool of talent [in B.C.],” he said. “My goal is to tap into this resource.”
Here’s how it works: Teachers sign up for free and offer webinars through My Education Room, setting the time and the number of students they want per lesson. Families typically pay between $20 and $30 per lesson, which the teachers pocket per student, minus a 25% administration fee.
A portion of the funds is also going to parent advisory councils for school resources and Pasin is in the process of coming up with a fair and transparent process for divvying up the funds.
He said he likes the idea of being able to give back and is hoping My Education Room capitalizes on his vision — dreamed up nine years ago, when, perhaps, easily available technology wasn’t ready — to link students and teachers in far-off districts with lessons they can take to challenge themselves or sharpen their knowledge on a particular topic.
“We live in an environment where you need a more dynamic means for interacting with the child,” he said.
The website also has links to articles about the B.C. education system and a Twitter feed.
The site took years to develop but now that it’s operational, he expects it can be used to expand to other educational jurisdictions once B.C.’s program has reached a critical mass. It could also support international students who take B.C.’s curriculum in their home countries.
But for now, Pasin’s goal is to sign up as many teachers as possible to provide interesting lessons on the website.
Already on offer is a lesson on the scientific method and another on essay writing, but he said the sky is the limit on the types of courses that can be offered.
