The New Westminster school district's controversial business company, which runs schools in China and Korea, is taking a financial hit with new rules implemented by the Chinese government.
The company was forced to shut down one of its English programs at one school in Wenzhou, China, and enrolment is down at another, business company chief executive officer Brent Atkinson said.
"(The school) gave us the notice that after this year, they will no longer be having a PACE (Progressive Academic Canadian English) program because their ministry is no longer going to give them any funding for it, and because they are a public school, they can't charge fees," Atkinson said.
The English program had about 350 students, Atkinson said. (The business company's other English program, which has about 1,300 students and is in a private school, is still operating, Atkinson said.)
As for enrolment at the company's high school, Atkinson said they are down by about 100 students from approximately 275 because of imposed government changes to the way schools can operate.
Two changes that have hurt the business company's ability to do business include no longer allowing it to recruit students outside of the city and not allowing it to recruit before June 15 - two strategies Atkinson said they had used.
Another change - the government wants the school to offer not just a B.C. diploma but a Chinese diploma as well.
"I can understand that they wanted us to go to a dual program, so their students would graduate with both a B.C. and a Chinese diploma, so their students could go to university in China," said Atkinson, who has managed to turn the overseas business company into a profit-making enterprise.
Despite the rule changes, the company is still expected to bring a $200,000 profit into the school district for 2012/13 school year, secretary-treasurer Brian Sommerfeldt wrote in an email to The Record.
Last year, the company brought in a net profit of $363,000 for the district.
For the first time since he took over the company more than five years ago, Atkinson - former longtime school trustee - is being paid for his work. As of January, it was determined that he would receive $20,000 a year, while three of the board's directors would get $4,000 each. The district's secretary-treasurer is not receiving payment for his participation on the board.
Rule changes could also hit closer to home. The provincial government is doing a review of the guidelines and the process under which offshore schools are reviewed, Atkinson said.
"They indicated to us that they would have that information out to us in December," he said. "It could impact all kinds of things."
Meanwhile, the business company has expanded into new territory this year, opening an elementary school in Korea this month.
"We are conducting an elementary school with a modest population now because their full year is January to December, so in September we only had an intake of 30 to 35 students, but we hope to be up to close to 80 by January," Atkinson said.
The school district's business company has been a controversial endeavor since the district started selling the B.C. curriculum abroad, under legislation introduced by the B.C. Liberals in 2002. For years, the enterprise - a $1 million investment that took years to get back - was a drain on the district's coffers, but it has managed to turn a profit in recent years.
