TORONTO - On Feb. 23 the Toronto Catholic District School Board welcomed about 50 Asian students to the board’s first International Students Orientation Day.
“We want to expose students to what is available to them in Toronto Catholic,” said Alex Mazzucco, program co-ordinator of the continuing education and international student programs. “They’re used to a system that is not transparent so we want to let them know what supports they have.”
Following a morning introduction at the board’s head office, where students were addressed by social worker Anthony Lee, associate director of academics Angela Gauthier and Yufei Lee of the Chinese Consulate in Toronto, three workshops were offered. Topics included living and settling in Canada, an overview of the international students program, and the expectations and responsibilities shared by the students, their home-stay family and legal guardian.
The board launched its international student program in 2009 with about 20 foreign students. Within a year that number quadrupled and this year about 520 foreign students, the majority from China, are enrolled in the world’s largest publicly funded Catholic education system.
On average it costs a foreign family about $13,000 to send a secondary student to Toronto, or just under $11,000 for elementary students. That’s about double the cost of undergraduate tuition at a Canadian university.
“Many of the students are coming from countries where education isn’t free,” said Mazzucco. “If they want a quality education there’s a cost associated with it so they’re used to paying a tuition.”
A major difference for many students, particularly those from communist China, is encountering academic freedom.
“Here you can choose the courses you like, you can find your interest and choose those courses but in China we have to finish all the courses,” said Alex Zhao. “It’s more challenging because in China most of the time we are doing homework given by the teacher and here we have more activities like doing the research by yourself and independent study units.”
While Zhao said he enjoys the freedom and flexibility of education here — he now spends about half as much time in the classroom as he did China — it caused him some anxiety in September when he arrived at Neil McNeil Catholic Secondary School.
“It’s a big problem for international students to choose a career and choose the courses,” said the Grade 11 student from Ching Hai, China. “We didn’t think about it before we came here because we had to take everything and do well in everything.”
Zhao has narrowed his future career path down to finance or engineering.
But not all international students arrive with uncertainty about future careers. Hans Zhang, also at Neil McNeil, is pursuing a career in finance.
“Finance is what I want to do for the future,” said said Zhang, a Grade 12 aspiring financial analyst. “I can choose the courses that I want, like accounting (and) economics; all of them are preparing me for my financial career.”
Mazzucco said the typical student enrolling in the international student program is academically strong and aspires to attend a Canadian university.