Mithila Jeyakumar, 16, performs a DNA extraction experiment in her grade 11 International Baccalaureate Biology class at Parkdale Collegiate in Toronto on October 28, 2011.
It is a prestigious high-school program, an internationally recognized diploma that gives students an academic edge. But as the popularity of the International Baccalaureate has boomed, schools are charging fees in a policy vacuum, leading to huge discrepancies in cost and questions about access.
A Globe and Mail investigation has found that schools within the same district, sometimes mere kilometres apart, are charging radically different rates for identical programs. At North Vancouver's Carson Graham Secondary School, students pay $960 in fees to complete their IB diploma. Twelve kilometres south, Britannia Secondary School offers the program for free.
It's a pattern repeated across the country, leading critics to argue that private schools are being created within the public system. Of the four provinces with the highest numbers of public IB schools, only Nova Scotia has clear rules for funding. It offers the program at no cost. Freedom of information requests show that parents in B.C., Alberta and Ontario paid a total of $2.85-million in the 2009-2010 school year for IB programs. Over six months, in reviewing the records of 93 public high schools, The Globe uncovered a never-before-seen portrait of IB in Canada, revealing millions of dollars in irregular fees that are subject to little oversight.
"In an ideal world everyone would be paying the same thing," said Daniel Benham, chief financial officer of the International Baccalaureate Organization. "This doesn't feel right." The cost of the program, including standard licensing and exam fees, is set by the IBO and is consistent across schools worldwide, which makes the discrepancies in fees even more baffling.
The IBO develops and markets the program, but says it is only an international service provider with no jurisdiction over Canadian education policies. Meanwhile, responsibility for overseeing the fees in Canadian schools has been shunted around – most ministries of education don't set parameters, deferring largely to school boards, who in turn often leave the decision to individual schools. As a result, parents can pay anywhere between nothing and $3,000 for enrolment.
The academically rigorous program, which began in 1968 in Geneva as a tool for teaching the children of diplomats, takes a more international view on social issues and history. Private schools were the first to embrace the program but today, more than half of the world's IB schools are state-funded. In Canada, more than 90 per cent of the schools that offer IB are public.
The popularity of the program is exploding, with some universities offering early admissions, specialized scholarships and advanced standing to IB applicants. About 10,000 spots are available to high school students in Canada, but many more apply. Some schools turn away as many as nine in 10 candidates, based on interviews, transcripts, reference letters and aptitude tests.
Some school districts say that at a time when budgets are stretched thin, charging fees for supplementary programming is the only fiscally responsible choice. Others maintain that equal access is paramount.
The Toronto District School Board is the only district in the Greater Toronto Area that offers IB for free. "We've never charged fees," said Manon Gardner, the board's chief academic officer. "The trustees felt very strongly that we should not charge anything, even a nominal fee." She credits the program with boosting enrolment at Parkdale Collegiate, an inner-city school that was struggling in 2008 with low enrolment and violence.
To the north, York Regional District School charges the highest fees in the country at Bayview Secondary School, tucked within the affluent suburbs of Richmond Hill. There, students pay $3,000 to complete the diploma program, with the money going toward exam fees, teacher training, technical support and books. Bursaries are available to students in financial need.
Alex Corry, the school's principal, said this is the responsible way of managing program costs. "It's not fair to ask taxpayers fully funding our Ontario curriculum to also be paying for this additional IB program," he said. "These fees we are charging are simply cost-recovery fees. If we charged nothing, the money would have to be taken from somewhere else in our budget."
When schools do charge, however, parents often aren't told what they're paying for. Application fees, annual charges or exam fees are sometimes cited, as are annual licensing fees and professional development.
Bruce Hooey's son, Derek, graduated from Bayview's IB program two years ago. Mr. Hooey, an accountant, asked the school for a breakdown of where the $3,000 in fees were going.
"It was less an issue that they were charging something, it was trying to substantiate whether that was a fair number," he said. "I could never get a clear answer and I think they didn't have the data themselves."
The district says costs vary year-to-year, and an itemized list is hard to produce.
In the absence of a national education plan, provinces and school districts have stitched together a loose patchwork of policies for specialized programs like IB.
Nova Scotia is the only province that directly funds the program. This school year it distributed $1.3-million between each of its eight school boards so IB could be offered for free.
"It wasn't based on a budget consideration of [whether]parents would be able to pay for it or not," said Nova Scotia Minister of Education Ramona Jennex. "This is a public school system and we wanted every child in Nova Scotia to have the same opportunities."
The province is investing in IB at a time when it's facing a 1.65-per-cent education budget cut, amounting to $17.6-million less for schools. But Ms. Jennex said the investment pays off and Nova Scotia's IB students won $3.3-million in postsecondary scholarships last year.
Alberta, British Columbia and Ontario have guidelines that allow schools to charge fees for supplemental programs, but none that govern parameters or limits for those fees.
Alberta Education "does not review or approve" alternative programs, ministry spokesman Greg Kuzniuk said in an e-mail. "This is a local decision by locally elected school boards. IB is considered an alternative program and is a local choice."
Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty also said recently he won't create new rules.
Even as parents scramble to get their children into this program, some alumni say it doesn't live up to the hype. Many Canadian universities recognize the IB program, including the University of Calgary, which offers students direct entry into second year. The University of Toronto takes a more cautious position, and recommends against IB students skipping first-year classes, science courses in particular.
Mr. Hooey's son, Derek, who is in second-year chemical engineering at the University of Waterloo, believes the IB program didn't prepare him for his first-year math courses.
He said Bayview didn't offer more advanced math and science courses, which was disappointing given the fees he and other parents paid for IB.
"It's really not a public education you're getting," he said. "We're paying extra, which right there means it's not public."