Overseas students have long been looking to Canadian high schools to provide them with an international study experience and according to Citizenship and Immigration Canada, 25 per cent of all student visa holders – needed for stays of three months or over – were studying in a secondary school in 2004. The secondary sector, therefore, is an important one for the Canadian international education industry and schools are increasingly diversifying their product range to cater for students not able to commit to study periods of a year or more.

The types of courses on offer vary in terms of their academic and language content and in some cases appear to resemble general language and activity courses, more traditionally offered in private language schools. Richmond School District in British Columbia offers semester programmes for five months as well as bespoke short-term programmes for groups and Mike Kliman, District Administrator of International programmes, says that these programmes provide a way to introduce the district and the schools to potential long-term students.