EMSB will defend programs and fees

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With a government auditor expected to descend upon 6000 Fielding next month, and the provicne’s UPAC squad set to open its books, EMSB chair Angela Mancini said as far as she is concerned, “the sooner the better.”

Questioned about her board’s international programs – which as The Suburban has reported are at the center of a controversy involving allegations of fraud, black market labour and other conflicts of interest¬ reaching across the Pacific – Mancini defended the board’s reliance on the increasingly lucrative cash cow of international student recruitment as it feeds desperately needed revenues into the board’s purse.

With some 1,300 international students out of its 25,000-strong adult education cohort, the board took in some $9 million last year she said, with 20 percent of that amount going to a recruiter, and about 10 percent of the balance put back into the system. “We recently put out about a $1 million into a variety of projects, each school got about $20,000. It allows us to maintain services and actually have a surplus.

In a financially strapped province it allows us to do that.”

She defended the 20 percent fee paid to partner Can-Share, saying while other boards are paying 50 percent to recruiters, the EMSB has fared well, and insisted that the fee is appropriate given the extent of the work involved. “In our perspective there is a lot of work done and the return back to the school board has been far higher than what we paid out.”

She insisted that nothing has surfaced leading her to believe that the recruitment schemes deployed to bring in students from Asia to the board’s centers involve promises or encouragement regarding immigration. There have been allegations that international student recruiters and their agents have suggested the Quebec programs as a means to fast-track the immigration process. “There is nothing right now that we can ascertain that that is the case; obviously if any agent is misrepresenting,then we would sever ties with them immediately.”