A trip to China by School District 43 officials, including the board of education chair, Barb Hobson, was made for business reasons and the decision to go was kept quiet for fear of divulging details to competitors.
Those were the explanations given this week — seven weeks after The Tri-City News first requested an interview on the topic — for the nearly $20,000 trip in late May during which those officials visited education bureaus and agencies in Nanjing and Beijing.
During an interview Tuesday at SD43 board offices in Coquitlam involving board chair and Coquitlam Trustee Barb Hobson, superintendent Patricia Gartland, secretary treasurer Chris Nicolls and community relations manager Ken Hoff, The Tri-City News was told the trip was taken to promote the district's international education program.
While the trip was taken amidst ongoing tensions between China and Canada since the arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou, they said international relations were not a factor in the decision to go.
Hobson and Gartland, who said they were not available for an interview in July because they were on vacation, said the trip to China in May was a business trip only, paid for by SD43, and not a slimmed-down version of the cultural trip trustees have been taking annually for several years.
Those trips, paid for by grants from the Confucius Institute, and funded through China’s education arm Hanban, are for learning about China’s language and culture, Gartland said.
While the spring break cultural trip was postponed, the business trip went ahead.
The China-funded trips have been under scrutiny in recent months in the wake of diplomatic tensions between Canada and China.They were an election issue in the 2018 civic campaign and, since then, critique of elected officials accepting Chinese-government hospitality has continued. Notably, Port Coquitlam Mayor Brad West has pushed for the Union of BC Municipalities to stop China's sponsorship of a meet-and-greet reception at its upcoming convention.
The UBCM has agreed to review sponsorships but, although SD43 postponed its most recent cultural trip to China for trustees, those trips haven’t been permanently cancelled.
Gartland said it’s up to trustees to decide if they want to go on the trip, and while one for the fall was considered, it was put on hold because of a scheduling conflict with meetings with the Ministry of Education.
“We’ll look at it in the spring,” Gartland said.
But the most recent trip — involving Hobson, Gartland and international ed. marketing manager Robert Lajoie — is among seven taken annually to China as part of multi-country promotional journeys to meet with education bureaus and agents.
Only the most high-level trips, involving discussions with education bureaucrats and sister schools, require the attendance of the board chair, The Tri-City News was told.
Hobson said the trip was made for business reasons alone, and while she checked the federal government’s travel advisory, she said her safety wasn’t a concern because advisories are routine, even for countries such as Britain and France.
“When you run a business, you make the business the primary goal," Hobson told The Tri-City News Tuesday. "And I focused directly on the advantages to our school district.”
Gartland and Hobson said they have no problem doing business with China during these times of diplomatic tension because their goal is to promote the international ed. program, which they said improves education opportunities for local students, provides them with skills for navigating an increasingly global economy and could serve to bridge the divide between countries.
“Because ultimately, we know this is a globalized world. We know that people need to learn from each other and learn about each other's perspectives," said Gartland, who formerly ran the district's international ed. program. "And there's no better way than by speaking face to face, and talking to each other, learning about each other's cultures, seeing each other's points of view, and making the world a better place."
As to why the district didn’t publicize the trip, Gartland said the program doesn’t reveal information that could give other educational agencies competitive advantage.
“We don't always want to let everyone know exactly where we're finding opportunities because others will follow us," she said. "And we do compete for international students.”
School District 43’s international program is the largest and most successful in the province, and provides significant revenue — roughly $35 million a year — including summer school for foreign students. In addition to hiring teachers, the program pays schools hosting students grants for cultural programs, which this year cost $650,000.
But even Gartland admitted the program has its upper limits, and may well have plateaued at 1,850 students this year, down from 2,000 last year, with families paying $16,500 for their children to go to school here, not including activity fees.
As well, the number of students coming from China to attend SD43 schools is declining as a proportion of total student numbers, from 70% in 2017/’18 to 60% last year and 50% this year.
Gartland said a combination of factors could result in the decline in the proportion of Chinese students, including the appeal of SD43 to students of other countries, and changing demographics.
Trips to China for trustees aren't the only cultural programming in the Tri-Cities paid for by the Chinese government. SD43 runs a Confucius Institute, in which students participate in after-school language and cultural programs. Students pay $200 in fees for books and tuition, with the Chinese government, through Hanban, contributing grants for supplies, a Chinese writing and public speaking contest, performances and supplies.
In 2018, the district received U.S.$246,000 in grants and applied for U.S.$260,000 in grants in 2019.
SD43 says it maintains autonomy from the Chinese government in the hiring of 40 teachers, who have university degrees and certification in teaching Chinese, and are either permanent residents or Canadian citizens.
In the fall of 2019, there were five adults and 680 children enrolled in Confucius Institute classes such as Mandarin language, Chinese painting and Chinese kung fu.
