Offshore Schools Research Articles

Brain drain in pediatric anesthesiology: The geographic and demographic distribution of national origin among pediatric anesthesiologists in the United States.

American pediatric anesthesiologists have a long history of international volunteerism. However, the US healthcare system also benefits from the contributions of a large number of physicians who come from other nations to work within its borders. Despite this fact, little is known about the contribution of international medical graduates (IMG) to the pediatric anesthesiology subspecialty. To characterize the contribution of IMG to the field of pediatric anesthesiology in the United States, and to elucidate the geographic and demographic distribution of their national origins so as to understand the movement of skilled personnel between countries. Online physician directories of American children's hospitals were searched, and anesthesiologists were recorded for their national origin of medical education. International graduates were reported as a percentage of the pediatric anesthesiology workforce. Those attending medical colleges catering to American students ("offshore" medical schools) were analyzed separately from other IMGs. The cohort of non-offshore IMGs were analyzed for national and continental origins, and by national level of economic development. Of 1979 anesthesiologists analyzed, 397 attended medical school outside the United States, with 58 being from offshore schools. The remaining 338 represented 17.1% of the total pediatric anesthesiology workforce. They came from 58 countries on six continents. Of those, 65.1% attended medical school in low- and middle-income countries. International medical graduates, disproportionately from low- and middle-income countries, compose a large proportion of the US Pediatric Anesthesiology workforce. While these clinicians play a vital role in providing care for American children, the potential impacts of skilled physician loss on their nations of origin must also be considered.

Exposing Colonial and Imperial Roots in Neoliberal Globalization of BC K-12 International Education System

With the rise of British Columbia (BC) kindergarten to Grade 12 (K–12) international education (formerly known as onshore schools) and the BC Offshore School Program, the business of international students is no longer limited to higher education. Working from a decolonizing framework, this study argues that the ever-changing, complex global system of international education in the context of BC’s public education system is a continuing form of imperialism and colonialism working under the guise of neoliberal globalization and the knowledge-based economy. Through a critical review of the current development of BC public schools’ K–12 international education, this study investigates how the shift from public schools dependent on shrinking government expenditure to relying on market-driven funding mechanisms has enormous implications on the way we think about education and the values that underpin educational endeavours.

Contending With Censorship In Canadian-Accredited Schools Abroad

In this study, one current and three former British Columbia (BC) offshore school principals were interviewed to seek their insights on how they contended with being compelled to censor material and disallow topics of conversation while administering a Canadian curriculum in an international context. Using a research design consistent with an interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) methodological framework, the data were interpreted using three reduction cycles to generate five categories: disillusionment, anger, struggle, expedience, and subversion. The participants’ responses were synthesized through the five categories in light of the phenomenon of moral distress, which occurs when a person is hindered from following a course of action consonant with their own moral judgement. Participants’ reflections on leading Canadian high schools outside of Canada offered meaningful insights into their lived experiences abroad and provided a basis for a more robust consideration of how principals make sense of morally distressing situations in their schools.

Emergency Remote Teaching: The Challenges Associated with a Context of Second Language Instruction

The pandemic of 2020 frequently necessitated that offshore school teachers continue their instruction of Chinese children in the online format rather than face-to-face back in China; a so-called emergency remote teaching response. A required change in pedagogy accompanied a range of challenges in an effort to offer quality education to English as a Second Language (ESL) students. During the fall 2020-2021 academic year, a sample of 25 teachers and 3 principals provided feedback on those inherent challenges in a mixed method study consisting of surveys, interviews, and focus groups. Factors that impacted the delivery were identified in broad categories of teacher lifestyle, hindrances with technology, teaching practice, and pedagogical support. The findings were unique in that 1) they were nested in a response to a difficult context as opposed to a carefully planned online instruction and 2) second language students constituted a different learning cohort. This work further adds to the literature by suggesting that cognitive load, self-regulation, and attentional literacy deserve careful consideration when contexts of ESL learning with technology are implicated. This work further adds to the literature by suggesting that cognitive load, self-regulation and attentional literacy deserve careful consideration when contexts of ESL learning with technology are implicated.

Student Perspectives of Academic Discourse Socialization in British Columbia Offshore Schools in China

ABSTRACT This study examines the second language academic discourse socialization of two Chinese students who attended British Columbia (Canada) offshore schools in China. After an overview of offshore school structures in China, this article describes the perspectives and experiences of recent offshore school graduates interviewed at a Canadian university. This multiple case study uses semi-structured interviews, written responses, and educational documents as data sources. Framed by theories of academic (discourse) socialization and (second) language socialization, the findings illustrate the significance and meaning that participants placed on learning and navigating Canadian educational discourses and expectations. The findings reveal that, in addition to developing English language competencies, participants constructed offshore student identities through recognizing the importance of academic socialization into student-centered learning, project-based assessment, and learning rules and norms of academic research essays. These findings provide perspectives of offshore schools from student perspectives and have implications for offshore, international, and public schools.

Adapting to Leadership in Offshore Schools: A Case Study of Sino-Nova Scotian Schools

A mixed-methods study including 22 Sino-Nova Scotian school principals in China has established that preparation for leadership in that context requires the consideration of many salient factors. While many North American standards of leadership are an important foundation, effective communication within the multidimensional system is of paramount importance. It was also found that, in order to administer a successful program, principals needed to build stronger social support systems for their teachers and further create a community of practice that included cultural sensitivity and understanding.

Canadian Literacy Curricula in Macau, China: Students’ Lived Curriculum

This ethnographic case study documents students’ lived experience at a Canadian offshore school in Macau through students’ multimodal artifacts, interviews, and teacher-student interactions in English and Mandarin literacy classes. Undergirded by the theory of cosmopolitan literacies, this study revealed the opportunities at mcs for difference negotiation and fluid identity formation that were enabled by mcs’s curricular emphasis on celebrating multiculturalism and multimodality. However, interview and observation data showed that literacy practices in the English literacy classes also centered around pen to paper meaning-making. This study identified human and non-human actors that enabled and constrained students’ literacy and identity options in the unique cross-border education context in Macau, such as mcs’s multicultural reality, school’s curricular emphasis on celebrating multiculturalism and multimodality, individual teachers’ preferences in literacy practices, and the expectations of the standardized Alberta test. The paper discusses the pedagogical potentials of cosmopolitan literacies to expand transnational education students’ literacy and identity options.

Tracing cosmopolitan literacies: a case study of transnational literacy curricula

ABSTRACTThis case study explored the institutional, programmatic, and classroom literacy curricula of a Canadian offshore school in Macau (school pseudonym: MCS). Undergirded by the conceptual tool of cosmopolitan literacies, this study specifically examined the network effects that influenced the forms of cosmopolitan literacies in MCS’s three levels of curriculum. In exploring the English immersion-based programmatic curriculum for MCS, data show a universalistic vision of literacy that foregrounds essentialism and universalism in world and Canadian literature in English. Yet school policy-makers and teachers concerted efforts to adapt the parochial, Canadian programmatic curricula and responded to students’ diverse needs and fluid identities in the local/global intersections. Findings also relate English and Mandarin literacy teachers’ agency, collaboration, and creativity in enacting cosmopolitan literacy practices in the transnational education classrooms. The paper ends with a reconfiguration of cosmopolitan literacies for curriculum-making, pedagogy, and assessment in the 21st century interconnected schooling contexts.

Canadian offshore schools in China: a comparative policy analysis

Internationalisation is no longer a well-recognised feature unique to higher education. It has permeated K-12 education. However, little research has been done on internationalisation at the K-12 level, particularly on offshore schools. This study examines how Canadian and Chinese policies regarding offshore schools have developed over the years, what values and objectives underlie such policies, and how they affect present and future development of Canadian offshore schools in China. The study identifies in/consistencies and priorities in policy-making and implementation and uncovers the trend of policy development through comparing stipulations on international cooperation of both countries. It shows that both countries are making policies and action plans based on their national interest in the international context without giving adequate attention to the legal, political, and social cultures of the other country. This leads to inconsistencies and confusions in their international educational cooperation and creates potential hindrance to its further development.

ANCHOVY DISTRIBUTIONAL PROPERTIES BY TIME AND LOCATION: USING ACOUSTIC DATA FROM A PRIMARY TRAWL SURVEY IN THE SOUTH SEA OF SOUTH KOREA

In South Korea, acoustic data from primary trawl surveys are not exploited. Thus, the objective of this study was to present the availability of acoustic data from a primary trawl survey by examining the distributional properties of anchovy schools by time (morning and afternoon) and location (inshore and offshore). Echosounder data were collected while conducting a trawl survey in the South Sea of South Korea on April 14-18, 2014. In six of eight trawl shots, the major species was anchovy Engraulis japonicus (＞ 95% of total catch weight). Consequently, the length, thickness, area, and volume backscattering strength (SV) of morning and afternoon anchovy schools were similar; however, some afternoon schools were very long or thick. Morning schools were distributed in a wider depth range than were afternoon schools. All distributional properties, other than the length and area, differed significantly by time (Mann-Whitney U test, p ＜ 0.05). A comparison between anchovies in inshore waters and mixed species schools in offshore waters, the average length of the inshore anchovy schools was longer than that of the offshore schools, whereas the average thickness, area, and SV of both schools were similar. Long or large schools were observed only in inshore waters. Inshore schools were distributed at a deeper depth than offshore schools. Every property, except SV, differed significantly between inshore and offshore waters. Finally, a conceptual diagram is presented to illustrate the distributional properties of anchovy schools according to time and location.

Offshore Medical Schools Are Buying Clinical Clerkships in U.S. Hospitals: The Problem and Potential Solutions.

U.S. medical education faces a threat from for-profit Caribbean medical schools which purchase clinical rotation slots for their students at U.S. hospitals. These offshore schools are monetizing a system that was previously characterized as a duty-the duty of the current generation of physicians to educate their successors. Offshore schools purchase clinical rotation slots using funds largely derived from federally subsidized student loans. This leads to pressure on U.S. schools to pay for clinical clerkships and is forcing some of them to find new clinical training sites.For-profit Caribbean schools largely escape the type of scrutiny that U.S. schools face from U.S. national accreditation organizations. They also enroll large classes of students with lower undergraduate GPAs and Medical College Admission Test scores than those of students at U.S. medical schools; their students take and pass Step 1 of the United States Medical Licensing Examination at a substantially lower rate than that of U.S. medical students; and their students match for residencies at a fraction of the rate of U.S. medical school graduates.Among the potential solutions proposed by the authors are passing laws to hold for-profit Caribbean schools to standards for board passage rates, placing restrictions on federal student loans, monitoring attrition rates, and denying offshore schools access to U.S. clinical training sites unless they meet accreditation standards equivalent to those of U.S. medical schools.

Entry Mode of Offshore School Enterprises from English Speaking Countries

Offshore schools are for-profit educational services designed to grant home government recognised high school diplomas to students in an overseas country. This paper takes the theoretical perspectives of institutions and transaction cost economics to investigate how offshore school multinational enterprises choose the entry mode in foreign direct investment. We create a dataset for offshore schools from developed English-speaking countries to provide supporting evidence. We find that resulting from stringent regulations on the education system by home country authorities, offshore school enterprises tend to choose the high control mode in the host country when the specificity of investments is high, particularly in feeder schools as the guaranteed parent university admission with an offshore school high school diploma. Our study provides theoretical implications on entry mode choices upon home country institutions, as well as temporal specificity of the feeder school investment.

A Canadian ESL Teacher in China: A Stranger in a Strange Land

Through a self-study of teacher and teacher education practices, this article explores cultural discontinuities between Canadian teachers and Chinese students enrolled in Canadian offshore schools. The methodology of self-study provides a means to think about, understand and develop teachers' practice in contexts where intercultural diversity impacts on best practice. Strategies and techniques to ameliorate teacher–student interaction, conceptions of teaching and learning, assessment norms, and voluntary and involuntary plagiarism are discussed. The strategies and techniques presented have the potential to contribute to the development of culturally relevant teaching pedagogy which aims to negate cultural discontinuities between teachers and students.

Dominica: 2007 Article IV Consultation-Staff Report; Staff Supplement; and Public Information Notice on the Executive Board Discussion

This 2007 Article IV Consultation highlights that Dominica has fully recovered from the 2001–02 economic and financial crisis. Output growth has rebounded, reaching 4 percent in 2006, and it is expected to remain above trend in 2007. The rebound is driven by a pickup in tourism, recovery in banana production, and buoyant construction and offshore school activity. Inflation has remained subdued, reflecting stabilizing oil prices, and is projected to remain low. The external current account deficit narrowed sharply in 2006, and is likely to remain large at about 20 percent of GDP in 2007.

Emergent Geographies of International Education and Social Exclusion

This paper explores the socio‐spatial implications of recent developments in the internationalisation of education, which includes the growth in numbers of foreign students and the establishment of offshore schools. It demonstrates the relationship between emergent geographies of international education in the “West” and social reproduction in both student “sending” and “receiving” societies. Drawing on fieldwork in Hong Kong and Canada, it argues that international education is transforming the spatial scales over which social reproduction is achieved: on the one hand, upper‐middle‐class populations in East Asia are able to secure their social status through the acquisition of a “Western education”, thereby creating new geographies of social exclusion within “student‐sending” societies. On the other hand, primary and secondary schools in Canada are able to harness the benefits of internationalisation in order to offset the negative effects of neoliberal educational reform, thereby facilitating local social reproduction.

Physician Workforce Shortages: Implications and Issues for Academic Health Centers and Policymakers

A physician shortage is likely given current levels of medical education and training. Because an increase in physician supply through expansion of U.S. medical school capacity will require ten or more years, there is little time left to affect the supply of new physicians in 2020 when a substantial number of baby boomers will be over 70 years of age. Even with a substantial increase in medical education and training capacity, it is unlikely that all of the increased demand for health services can be met with physicians. In addition to the challenges of expanding medical school enrollment, the nation will need to grapple with other ramifications of demand exceeding supply. This includes assessing how to deliver services more effectively and efficiently and the future roles of the physician and other health professionals. These challenges are particularly difficult for medical schools and teaching hospitals, the cornerstones of medical education and training in the United States. Osteopathic and off-shore schools targeted to Americans have been willing and able to grow more quickly and less expensively than U.S. medical schools, in part because of their more narrow approaches to medical education. In addition, physicians from less developed countries continue to migrate to the United States in significant numbers. Medical schools, teaching hospitals, and policymakers will need to address several major questions as they respond to the shortages. They will either confront and address these issues in the next few years or they will be forced to change by others in the future.

Reframing Public Educational Services and Programs as Tradable Commodities – A Synthesis and Critique of British Columbia’s Bill 34

This paper is a critical analysis of British Columbia’s controversial Part 6.1 of the School Amendment Act 2002 (Bill 34) as it relates to the reframing of public educational services and programs as a tradable commodity. It enables public school districts to incorporate private companies to set up offshore schools and to market educational services and programs locally, nationally, and internationally. Policy- makers introduced this Bill with the assumption that public educational institutions must compete with other “providers,” to sell their services and programs effectively in order to keep revenues at a healthy level to ensure their institutional viability and relevancy. This paper examines the goals, motives, and assumptions behind Bill 34, and, more specifically, the extent to which Part 6.1 of Bill 34 incorporates a market approach to public education as it commodifies public educational services and programs and creates competitive arrangements between public educational institutions.

Offshore schools loan regs revamped

AFTER YEARS of neglecting its congressionally mandated responsibility, the US Department of Education is putting the final touches on new regulations for determining which foreign medical schools are eligible to participate in the Federal Family Educational Loan (FFEL) program. However, these final touches may touch off angry protests as well as lawsuits if they accomplish what Congress has mandated in the Higher Education Act Amendment of 1992—to deny federally insured loans to students attending foreign medical schools that fail to meet the same standards US and Canadian schools must meet. Many of these schools, which primarily enroll US citizens, depend heavily on tuition paid with FFEL program loans. These loans are the only federal educational assistance funds available to Americans studying abroad. At least some of these for-profit, offshore schools may not stay open if eligibility for the loan program is denied. To satisfy the new regulations, substandard schools

Offshore Schools Loan Regs Revamped

Offshore Schools Loan Regs Revamped