Chinese cultural school inks deal to open New Brunswick campus
Education Moncton-based institute one of three in Canada
MARTY KLINKENBERG
TELEGRAPH-JOURNAL
Published Tuesday July 31st, 2007
Appeared on page A1
BEIJING - New Brunswick is about to add another important link to its developing ties with China, with an announcement expected soon that a Confucius Institute will open in Moncton in the fall, only the third such school in Canada.
New Brunswick education officials met with counterparts in Beijing Monday and finalized an agreement to open one of the Chinese cultural schools in New Brunswick in September. The institute will partner with a number of universities and community colleges in the province, and will eventually open up satellite campuses outside of Moncton as well.
"The Chinese government is opening 100 of these institutes worldwide, and we got one of them," said Alan Norman, a former principal at Bernice MacNaughton High School who now serves as general manager of Moncton-based Atlantic Education International.
The firm works with the provincial government to oversee the implementation of curriculum from New Brunswick into Chinese schools. Four schools in China - two each in Beijing and Shenzhen - currently use New Brunswick's curriculum.
"The biggest country in the world is our partner and we have to take pride in that," Norman said Saturday after handing out New Brunswick high school diplomas at graduation exercises for the Beijing and Shenzhen Concord Colleges of Sino-Canada at the Great Hall of the People. "Other provinces are envious of the work we do in China.
"We don't bow down to anybody."
A group of New Brunswick schools will join the British Columbia Institute of Technology and the University of Waterloo as the only affiliates within Canada of the Confucius Institute. Other affiliates include the London School of Economics and the Universities of Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, Oklahoma and Rhode Island, Purdue University, Michigan State and North Carolina State.
The Confucius Institute is a non-profit public school designed to strengthen relations with other countries by offering opportunities to students outside China to study Chinese language and culture. Its headquarters is in Beijing and falls under the umbrella of the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic, which estimates that approximately 100 million people worldwide will be learning Chinese as a foreign language by the year 2010.
Norman has been negotiating a deal to bring the Confucius Institute to New Brunswick for 18 months. Since 1997, his company has worked on initiatives with the Department of Education and the Concord College of Sino-Canada, which celebrated its 10th anniversary Sunday night with a 2.5-hour concert by the New Brunswick Youth Orchestra at the Canadian International School in Beijing.
All four of the schools in China using New Brunswick curriculum were founded by Dr. Francis Pang, who has also had a long-standing relationship with the University of New Brunswick Saint John. Pang is hosting the 72-member youth orchestra during its current two-week China tour, and also has three dozen other high school students from across the province staying at the Beijing Concord College.
Those students, all in grades 10 or 11, are participating in a summer camp that includes classroom instruction in Chinese culture and language, as well as visits to historic sites such as the Great Wall and the Forbidden City. At the same time, Chinese students take part in an English-language program, with activities scheduled in such a way that New Brunswick and Chinese youths interact and reinforce skills in both languages.
"Cultural diversity means better understanding and more opportunity," said Pang, who was born in Hong Kong but lived in Canada for 28 years. "For us, it is a win-win situation."
Pang has been invited to visit the province in September to go fly fishing for Atlantic salmon and talk about further initiatives. He has entertained a delegation of New Brunswick officials for the last few days and joined them in a reception at the Canadian Embassy.
The New Brunswick contingent is led by Minister of Education Kelly Lamrock, and includes assistant deputy minister Dave Roberts, Lt.-Gov. Herménégilde Chiasson, Strategic Programs Director Gary Wood, St. Thomas University administrator Colleen Comeau and MLA Larry Kennedy of Victoria-Tobique. The group is visiting five cities in nine days, the others being Shanghai, Hainan, Shenzhen and Hong Kong.
Lamrock, who flew to Bejing from Montreal last week after attending a Police concert, has been addressing officials here in both English and Chinese. He began taking Mandarin lessons only three weeks ago, but has been able to generate applause and smiles with his remarks in the mother tongue.
"We provide a real and perceived assurance that the education system in New Brunswick is of high quality, and there are a number of people here who are very interested in getting their own campuses in our province," Lamrock said. "There is a huge demand in China for community college and university education, and we want to be a part of that.
"We want to train their students and trades people, and put a New Brunswick stamp on it."
Lamrock addressed the graduates of the Beijing Concord and Shenzhen Sino-Canada Colleges on Saturday in the Great Hall. He said he felt tremendous pride in watching and listening to the youth orchestra, and also in handing out New Brunswick diplomas to students from China.
"It is incredible to have New Brunswick on the centre stage at an event like this," he said.
"Ten years from now these students here will be movers and shakers, and when they think of Canada, they aren't going to think of Vancouver or Toronto. They are going to think about New Brunswick."
Lamrock said no place in Canada can boast the links in education that New Brunswick has forged thus far with China.
"There is nothing else like it," he said. "Other provinces have tried to poach this now a dozen times over. We have to be a little more nimble, a little quicker and a lot more creative than provinces that are bigger than our own."
Marty Klinkenberg is contributing editor at The Telegraph-Journal. He is currently in China following the New Brunswick Youth Orchestra's two-week Forbidden City concert tour. He can be reached at
mklinkenberg@rogers.com.