Education

Why Chinese parents are sending their children abroad to study at a younger age

Parents are turning to overseas kindergartens as well as public and private high schools in search of a broad education for their children.

What Matters to the High End Asians

• Universities that Produce Fortune 500 ceo's
• 2013 List - Princeton tops Harvard!
• Wharton First Year MBA Course Online for Free
• UK universities offer free online courses

• Asian Rich - Young & Global
• Pedigree Matters
• Eton style

We know what school Alibaba's Jack Ma's son is attending ;-)

• OECD rating on Education
• Google's Boss and Princeton Prof agree that College is a Dinosaur
• Right Schools?

Encouraging Kids for Success

How to build your very own CEO

Every parent wants his or her child to grow up to be a successful human being. But maybe you have loftier goals for your offspring. Maybe you want your daughter to be the CEO of a big company; maybe you want your kid to be Prime Minister of Canada.

Sure there are some costs attached, but the 100 highest-earning CEOs on the TSX Index made an average of $7.7-million in 2011, according to the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. If you’re still raw about it decades later, ask your kid to throw you a million-dollar bone from C-Suite.

So aside from dressing him in sweater vests and cultivating a love of cats, here are some ways to raise a big shot.

Get them to the green: Ninety per cent of the Fortune 500 CEOs reportedly play golf and according to a Pompeu Fabra University study of CEOs, golfers earn more than non-golfers and the better your game, the more you earn.

Aside from the hobnobbing and chitchat between swings, perhaps the focus and discipline required for a good golf game transfers to the corporate field.

The National Golf Academy in Calgary begins teaching kids at six years of age. Introductory group instruction costs $99 for four one-hour sessions; private instruction is about $60 per lesson.

“The younger you can learn this game, the better,” says Terry Carter, the academy director. “It’s almost like riding a bike. You get those fundamentals early and you don’t lose them.”

Not sure if your child will swing the golf clubs or ride them like imaginary ponies? Test out their interest with mini golf ($8.50 for 12 and under at Putting Edge).

Cultivate his curiosity: Adam Bryant, who has interviewed more than 250 CEOs for his “Corner Office” column at the New York Times and has written a book about success, identified five qualities that leaders share. One is a “deep, relentless, questioning mind.”

“The best way to challenge corporate orthodoxy is to ask simple questions like, ‘Why do you do that that way?’ They’re almost like the kinds of questions the relentless five-year-old ask, ‘Why? Why? Why?’ But CEOs do that.”

So encourage your inquisitor: Take her to the Vancouver Aquarium ($14 for children 4-12, $25 for adults) or the Ontario Science Centre ($13 for children 3-12, $22 for adults) or The Manitoba Museum ($7.50 for 3-17, $9 for adults).

Teach him to speak up: Oprah Winfrey was a National Forensic League state champion in high school. Both John Kerry and George Bush were on the debate team in university. CBC journalist Ian Hanomansing and Federal Labour Minister Lisa Raitt were debaters in school.

“In an ever changing world, the skills that you really need to develop are critical-thinking skills and public speaking — the skills to communicate,” says Tracey Lee, ‎a world officer with the Canadian Student Debate Federation.

Encourage your kid to join the school’s debating team at no cost (provided that the school has a team registered with the provincial debating league). As alternatives, look for after-school programs. Dale Carnegie Training in Calgary offers an 8-week leadership program for teens ($1,895). In the summer, Debate Camp Canada runs one-week programs in Toronto and Windsor, N.S., $425 and $895, respectively.)

Then, prepare for vociferous debate about chores, curfews, homework, dating, etc.

Encourage her because she’s a girl: Let’s face facts. According to Statistics Canada’s 2011 National Household Survey, 80% of Canada’s one-percenters are men; more than 94% of the CEOs of Canada’s top 500 companies are men, says Catalyst, Inc., a nonprofit organization that promotes opportunities for women and business.

“Women are desperate for access to female role models,” says Carolyn Lawrence, president and CEO of Women of Influence Inc. “For girls, between the ages of 9 and 13 are the most critical in terms of developing potential leadership skills. The earlier you give girls examples of female leaders, the better.”

Find your daughter a mentor (Cybermentor, matches girls with women who have careers in math, science and engineering, at no cost) or enroll her in a leadership workshop. The YWCA’s GirlSpace programs for 9- to 18-year-olds offers a variety of free programming in your area. FearlesslyGirl offers a $350 spring and a summer leadership one-week day camp for girls aged 8-12 in Toronto.

Send him into the lion’s den (safely): CEOs have “battle-hardened confidence which is developing a track record of facing down adversity and succeeding so you know what you’re capable of,” Mr. Bryant says.

“As a parent you want to have your kid grow up in a safe and fun environment but they also learn important life lessons by metaphorically skinning their knees. Kids have to face down adversity and muscle through it to find out what they’re made off.”

Send your 12- or 13-year-old to Outward Bound Canada’s adventure day camp in Toronto for some safe challenges such as climbing, canoeing and hiking ($265 with a $75 application fee for two weeks).

Pit him against others: Healthy competition teaches kids to persevere, stand up for themselves and be vocal, says Ashley Merryman, co-author of Top Dog: The Science of Winning and Losing.

“It could be chess club; it could be auditioning for a play. We have this idea that the benefit of competition is winning. But the real benefit is pushing yourself further than you imagined,” she says.

Tycoons make and lose fortunes, she adds. “If you want to be a big shot, you have to understand that…being a big shot isn’t a one shot deal.”

Put your daughter in hockey (hockey league fees over the year could cost $2,300 in Toronto) or competitive cheerleading (starting at about $3,000, not including travel to competitions).

Make it about numbers: Before Marissa Mayer began solving Yahoo’s complex problems as the company’s CEO, she was solving equations in math club. As a CEO, your kid’s going to be putting deals together; they should understand the numbers. It costs $50 to enroll your child in Kumon (Vancouver)’s after-school math and reading program with a monthly fee of $110 for twice-a-week studies.

Start networking at recess: Many a CEO attended a prestigious private school. Ken Thomson, Galen Weston and Ted Rogers attended Toronto’s Upper Canada College (tuition runs from $29,000 to $55,000). Former prime minister John Turner and former cabinet minister Stockwell Day graduated from Ottawa’s Ashbury College (day fees are $20,900, boarding fees are $50,100).

Meanwhile, a year at Switzerland’s Neuchatel Junior College costs about $55,000. Alumni include Anthony Lacavera, CEO of Wind Mobile and Jennifer Stoddart, Canada’s Privacy Commissioner.

Get them educated: Sixty-seven per cent of the top one per cent of full-time workers have a university degree, the National Household Survey says. Most studied in three major fields: business (29.2%), health (14.5%) or engineering (11.4%).

Spencer Stuart, a Chicago-based executive search consulting firm, reported in 2008 that the most common undergraduate degrees among the S&P 500 CEOs were: engineering (22%), economics (16%) and business administration (13%). Sixty-seven of them had earned some type of advance degree such as an MBA.

Get your RESPs in order: A four-year university degree is expected to cost as much as $60,000 and that sum could rise to more than $140,000 for a child born this year, BMO says.  -- FINANCIAL POST

Illustration by Chloe Cushman/National Post