China’s Chaoyin Education Group has advertised for students at its Chaoyin International School in Canada
China’s Chaoyin Education Group, which will open a private school in Richmond, British Columbia, has sparked controversy by asking teachers to avoid topics such as Tiananmen Square and the Dalai Lama. School board employees and public school teachers in the city have expressed concern that this is another example of China’s Red influence in Canada.
The Chaoyin International School, located in Richmond, Canada’s most densely populated Chinese city, is still under construction, but the school site has an advertisement for students and the school’s website is advertising the school as having received a certificate of eligibility from the British Columbia Ministry of Education for kindergarten to grade 7 students, with the first class scheduled to arrive in September. The first students are expected to arrive in September, with tuition fees ranging from $15,000 to $23,000.
The school is invested by China Chaoyin Education Group. The Richmond school is the first overseas campus of the group, which has eight private schools in Qingdao, and claims to be open to students worldwide, with a focus on bilingual education in Chinese and English.
The school’s principal, Greg Corry, said he would not explicitly prohibit staff from teaching students about sensitive topics such as the Communist Party of China, Tiananmen Square and the Dalai Lama, but instructed teachers to “redirect” topics when they come up, because if students bring them home, it could lead to parents asking students to leave the school. If students bring these sensitive issues home, it may lead to parents asking students to withdraw from school. He also said that teachers must be careful about expressing appreciation for the Dalai Lama on social media or in public places to avoid being misunderstood.
A Richmond school board employee, who could not be named because he was not authorized to do so, said the board was concerned about the issue but could not do anything about it because the decision to establish an international school was made by the provincial education department. But he criticized Curry, as an educator, for not showing an attitude of doing something and not doing anything. “I don’t understand his statement that teachers will not be banned but will need to “switch” sensitive topics.
The B.C. Ministry of Education did not respond to an interview request.
The Chaoyin International School, built in Canada by China’s Chaoyin Education Group
She says it goes against the spirit of Western education. She was educated in Canada as a child, and later studied teaching. “This school doesn’t even want you to ask questions, you don’t ask, you don’t touch, so you don’t have the process of finding answers, so you don’t know the truth. But the teaching here is that you have to be curious and you have to explore a lot of things.”
Su Qiaoqiao said, like the current genocide controversy facing the Uighurs in Xinjiang, all sides have different opinions, and there should be open and pluralistic exchanges and discussions, like the persecution of aborigines by the Canadian government, which is now a compulsory curriculum in primary and secondary schools, she said. If that’s the case, then it’s all the more reason to worry about the influence of the Reds.
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