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Thunder Bay school board official in Asia looking for students

Lakehead District Public School Board hopes to enrol 50 international students

A representative of the Lakehead District Public School Board will travel to southeast Asia this month as part of an effort to attract international students to Thunder Bay.

An arms-length organization recently launched by the board— Lakehead Public Schools International— aims to enroll 50 overseas students within five years. In the program’s inaugural year, eight students have been enrolled, including six in high schools and two in local elementary schools. 

Spain, South Korea and China are among the countries they come from. 

Tuition and other fees for foreign students totals about $12,000,  but Superintendent of Education Sherri-Lynne Pharand, said the main objective is not to offset declining enrollment. 

“Certainly it will help us to increase enrollment but our goal is approximately 50 students so it’s not a significant goal," Pharand said. "It’s really about offering opportunities for (these) kids and helping our students become global citizens.”

Pharand told tbnewswatch.com that the budget for the program is about $180,000, and the board expects to fully cover its annual expenses once it has enrolled 20 international students.

She said each of the board’s four high schools currently hosts at least one foreign student under the program. “It’s a pretty exciting opportunity for the schools….It’s exciting to get to know more about the students and about another culture, and they’ve also had a very positive experience here in Thunder Bay, and we look forward to growing the opportunity.”

Sixteen-year-old Luis de la Cal arrived in Thunder Bay in September from Burgos in northern Spain. He’s in grade 11 at Sir Winston Churchill CVI, and hopes that what he learns in the Canadian education system will help him in a future career as a software engineer.

De la Cal said he was pleasantly surprised by the course choices that were available to him compared with back home. 

“I feel that here you have way more options …It’s more oriented towards what you want to do in the future.”

De la Cal  said he’s also enjoyed the opportunities to volunteer in Thunder Bay, to the extent that even after completing his mandatory volunteer hours through school, he hopes to do more volunteer work in the community before he returns to Burgos to continue his education  next year.

The Spanish student is living with a local family under the Canada Home Stay program which recruits host families, provides some training, and cross-matches the family’s profile with the profile of the foreign student to try to get the best match. 

“They’re a really nice family, I love being with them.  We do lots of stuff together,” de la Cal said.

Three other young people from Spain are enrolled in the Lakehead public school system.  Next week, My-Tien Nguyen, the board’s international student coordinator, leaves on an outreach  expedition to South Korea and Vietnam.

Superintendent Pharand said there are also other ways to link up with new students.

“Sometimes when you put information on your website and different social media platforms there are people who are looking to send their children to school in Canada and they find us.”  Pharand said the city’s two post-secondary institutions can be another conduit for international students. 

“There are students who are also coming (to) Lakehead University and Confederation College and that are international students but they have children who come with them, and so their children are also attending our schools.”

The school board also has partnerships with Lakehead and Confederation linked to their Early Acceptance programs.  Pharand said if students apply to attend a Thunder Bay public school in Grade 10 or 11, they can gain early acceptance for enrollment at the university or college as international students, provided they attain the marks needed in their high school program.

Fluency in the English language gives students such as de la Cal a head start. “I  have learned English since I was three years old,” he said. The young man was enrolled in a bilingual program in Spain where he studied several subjects while learning English.


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Gary Rinne

About the Author: Gary Rinne

Born and raised in Thunder Bay, Gary started part-time at Tbnewswatch in 2016 after retiring from the CBC
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