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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

Rural schools court foreign students to boost enrolment

By: Nick Martin

Posted: 12/12/2008 9:30 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

KIDS in junior high in Berlin, Rio de Janiero, Cancun or Seoul may be dreaming right this minute about going to high school in Virden, Souris, Minnedosa, Neepawa, or Killarney.

Those dreams could come true.

A consortium of five rural school divisions is making a big push to recruit international students to help stave off the steadily declining enrolment plaguing schools throughout Manitoba.

"We're pioneers in this regard," Ian Scott, director of international education for Study Manitoba School Divisions, said from Souris. He believed it is the first time in Canada that rural divisions have banded together to recruit overeas.

"We'll be expecting 10 students in 2010," said Scott. "Some of these students may be the first of their cultures in these communities."

Manitoba schools are losing thousands of students every year to declining birth rates. Education Minister Peter Bjornson imposed a moratorium on school closings late last spring, forcing a sudden halt to plans to close more than a dozen schools on June 30, 2009.

The consortium includes Beautiful Plains (Neepawa), Rolling River (Minnedosa), Turtle Mountain (Killarney), Southwest Horizon (Souris), and Fort la Bosse (Virden).

Scott said the group will attend education fairs overseas, hire agents, and promote their communities online. Initially, foreign students will be placed in schools depending on the availability of home stay families, he said.

"They'll be staying with farmers and local business people and their families," and some of the foreign students may ride a school bus, he said.

"We're looking for high school students. The business plan has (recruitment from) Korea, Mexico, Brazil and Germany."

Scott said the five divisions will be promoting safety of their small communities, their values, and small class sizes. While each division has at least one larger high school, they can offer 17 schools with high school grades, including kindergarten to Grade 12 schools, he said.

"At first, the revenue generated will go back into the program," said Scott, who most recently worked in international recruitment and marketing for Red River College.

Students will pay the standard international student tuition fee charged elsewhere in Manitoba of $10,000 a year plus $600 a month room and board.

Meanwhile, four schools in Louis Riel School Division that had been threatened with being closed at the end of this year still have low enrolment numbers, said superintendent Terry Borys.

St. James-Assiniboia had planned to close Ness Junior High and transfer students into Hedges Junior High next fall. This year, Ness has dropped from 303 to 243 students, while Hedges is up slightly from 190 to 209.

The division has 518 entering kindergarten while 812 expect to graduate this year. "It's a steady decline," said superintendent Ron Weston.

nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition December 12, 2008 A9

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