K-12 International Education Regional Roundtables

Overview & Synopsis

British Columbia's Government, through its Jobs Plan and International Education Strategy, has recognized the increasing importance of international education to the province's education system and economy. The Ministry of Education also recognized the expertise that school districts and schools have developed in this sector and the excellent work that has contributed to British Columbia's enviable reputation and international market-share. With continued growth in the size and complexity of the sector, there was a need to create the right types of policies and regulations that would mitigate risk without impeding the sector's entrepreneurialism. Therefore, in order to seek broad sector input into proposed future policy directions for onshore K-12 International Education programs, the Ministry held five regional roundtables during March and April of 2013. The regional roundtables targeted the participation of individuals with a role in the administration and/or oversight of K-12 international education. This paper attempts to identify themes that are sometimes mutually exclusive and capture the breadth of responses by forum participants with the goal to represent the big picture and avoid overemphasizing what appear to be singularly unique or outlying statements. This paper also offers a number of observations and questions to help bring clarity to some issues where appropriate. To that end, the synthesis captures the responses that were provided and organized them into dominant themes. The paper includes recommendations and the appendix: Distributed Materials.