Internationalizing education: VCE in China

Moving foward with off-shore VCE

On 10 April 2017, Northcote High School was granted two provisional licences to assist two Chinese schools to deliver the VCE. The two schools are Baotou Foreign Languages School in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Zone and Hengshui No1 High School in Hebei province. Subject to further approvals, the Chinese schools will commence the VCE in September 2017.

The approvals are the end of a long process that has involved extensive financial modelling and

presentation of a business case to the International Division of the Department of Education. In addition, we have conducted on site visits and been involved in ongoing communication.

Although engagement with Asia and export of education are state priorities, to date only a handful of Victorian Independent and Catholic schools, offer VCE offshore, but no other Victorian government schools. Northcote HS is the first.

The benefits for Northcote High School include

• An Intensive professional development for NHS staff, in their role as ongoing mentors to Chinese teachers of the VCE, through sharing and reflection on teaching practice.
• A dynamic new dimension to Northcote’s traditional vision of itself as an international provider of education.
• The development of a new and sustainable dimension to our international education program, that also provides a modest income stream. (The program runs at no cost to NHS or the state of Victoria)
• Leadership of and involvement in support of state and national initiatives to engage with China.

The course taught with NHS support will include:

• Chinese as a First Language,
• English as an additional Language (EAL),
• Mathematics Methods,
• Physics,
• Further Maths
• and possibly Chemistry

There is the possibility that other subjects will be added over time, based on advice and other schools experiences.

Nick Murphy