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Toronto cancels plan for China's Confucius Institute

The decision came after debate over the amount of control China has over the Institute's choice of topics to teach.

By Ed Adamczyk

TORONTO, Oct. 30 (UPI) -- The Toronto District School Board, Canada's largest, has voted to cancel plans for a China-run language and culture program, the Confucius Institute.

The worldwide program, which includes 465 institutes and over 700 "Confucius classrooms," is subsidized and controlled by the government of China. It offers after-school courses in Chinese language and culture to partner schools, and has lately seen resistance from schools in the United States and Canada. There have been objections that the classes restrict information the Chinese government regards as harmful or sensitive.

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The Toronto board voted Wednesday to terminate plans to have the Mandarin language and cultural programs, from a curriculum designed by China's ministry of education, to elementary school students. The decision came after consultation with Canadian groups including Tibetan refugees and members of Falun Gong, a spiritual movement outlawed in China. Other Toronto groups were supportive of the instruction, insisting politics would not play a role.

Pennsylvania State University and the University of Chicago -- and in Canada, Mcmaster University and the University of Sherbrooke -- are among school which recently severed ties with the Confucius Institutes. The American Association of University Professors said the institutes "function as an arm of the Chinese state and are allowed to ignore academic freedom."

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The Toronto board will return its initial $225,000 advance funding from the Chinese government.

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