Update: BC Obscures Offshore Schools Program with Redacted Documents

Six months after Coastal Front’s exclusive report on British Columbia’s Offshore Schools Program, the province remains opaque, responding to a freedom of information request with an almost entirely redacted document.

We recommend you go back and read the full report first. If not, here’s a refresher: the program, managed by the province's Ministry of Education and Child Care, enables students worldwide to learn BC's education curriculum at privately owned offshore schools to receive BC graduation certificates — also known as Dogwood Diplomas.

Operated by privately incorporated companies, not government entities, the program runs on a cost-recovery basis and is not intended to generate revenue for the province. Over the last five years, program recoveries have averaged $4.97 million annually, according to the ministry.

Coastal Front’s report highlighted a multitude of problems with the program, most notably that it fails to track one of its key objectives, which the ministry states is to attract more international students to study, work, and live in BC.

As previously detailed by Coastal Front, the ministry admits it does not track the permanent resident or citizenship status of graduates. That's right, the ministry has not made any effort to follow one of its primary goals, and since Coastal Front's report, it has not indicated any steps it might take to start monitoring this key aspect of its mandate.

Another central goal, as stated by the ministry, is to draw more international students to study in BC.

The ministry reports that 15% of all offshore school graduates have transitioned to BC public post-secondary institutions since the first cohort in the 2001/02 school year, tracking this through each student’s Personal Education Number.

However, "updated" data the ministry provided to Coastal Front shows that during the 2019/20 graduation year, less than five percent of graduates moved on to BC public colleges and universities. The ministry claims these are the most recent statistics available, despite having provided data for the 2022/23 school year in other areas, such as the number of full-time students enrolled in offshore schools.

Regarding the schools’ financials, the ministry will not release this information in response to a freedom of information request. Since BC offshore schools are operated by private entities, such information is protected under Section 21 of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, the ministry said.

Mammoth Redactions

In the ministry’s 2023 Estimates Notes, page 203 states that an external review of the program was completed by Deloitte in February 2018. Coastal Front filed a freedom of information request for a copy of the review, all emails — sent, received, including attachments — and texts and/or electronic messages related to the 2018 Deloitte review from March 2017 to March 2019.

The province sent back a 99-page document. However, 94 pages were entirely redacted.

Of the measly amount of content included in the response package was an email by Brian Jonker, formerly the executive director of independent education at the ministry, to colleagues, detailing a forthcoming presentation about the Deloitte review.

He told colleagues “tweaks will be made in language” before sharing the report with the branch.

The document showed another email between a Deloitte employee and Jonker in which the Deloitte employee thanked Jonker for the opportunity to work with him on the project.

That’s it. That’s all the information the province provided.

Looking past the province’s blatant opacity, Coastal Front’s initial observation remains clear: the program benefits private entities that capitalize on the province's reputation. Here’s why: Despite the province owning all intellectual property rights for BC's curriculum, including its use in offshore schools, it does not seek to profit from the initiative that generates tens of millions annually for overseas profiteers. The province justifies the cost-recovery model with its central goals, such as attracting citizens and permanent residents to BC — a metric it does not track — and drawing post-secondary students to BC, which amounted to only 120 students according to the ministry's most recent data.

The province hasn’t provided tangible answers in response to clear and straightforward questions regarding the program. It evades questions and redacts documents to the point where they are useless.

More to come…