Griff

Hi

Can someone please confirm or not that children attending schools in BC who are accompanying parents on a work permit (with study permits of their own) do not have to pay for their school/ tuition fees (they will be in state education not private )

Thanks
Elaine

iaink

Not that easy to do. If its at all like Ontario policies are set by individual school boards, so it will depend exactly where in BC.

In general fees would be unusual in those curcumstances but not unheard off. It might even be possible that it be a similar situation to health coverage in Ontario, where OHIP is only available to the dependents of people on work permits if the main permit holder has a long term work contract (at least 3 year).

Judy in Calgary

Hello Elaine,

As iaink said, it can vary from school district to school district. I don't know where in BC you'll be living. If you'll be in the Greater Vancouver Area, there's one school district for the City of Vancouver, one for Burnaby, one for North Vancouver, and so on.

According to the Burnaby School District's Registration page, just as an example:
In Canada a typical public (government-funded) school district charges international students tuition of about C$10,000 a year.

If you don't get definitive information here, it would be a good idea to post your question at Brits2Vancouver. In addition to being a wealth of information on Vancouver specifically, they also know a good deal about BC in general.

PMM

Hi


Students in Vancouver do not have to pay international fees if there parents are on a degree granting study permit or work permit valid for at least 1 year.
see:http://www.vsb.bc.ca/parentsfamilies...nvancouver.htm

Griff

PMM
thanks for the info

jempee

we are on Vancouver island and daughters school did not ask me for proof on pr, come to think of it they never even asked me if she had pr. took all doc's with me birth certificate, pr, sin #, immunisation record and our doc's just in case they wanted to see them and was asked for none. bit scary really.

mels123

We're in West Van at the moment and we had to take work permits and daughter's immunisation record, school report etc in to show the school. As our work permits are for one year, they did ask if we were going to extend them which we said we were.

I do know of another family who landed at the same time as us who had problems registering their kids at school. Their permits were made out for 1 week short of a year at immigration through no fault of their own and the school refused to let their kids attend unless they were prepared to pay $12,500 per child!! They are in the process of extending their permits and finally the kids can now attend from tomorrow.

It is something to bear in mind when you collect your permits from immigration, make sure they are valid for 1 year and nothing less! It causes so many problems otherwise.

HTH and good luck
Mel