Rosedale International Education

Rosedale International Education’s journey to becoming a leader in technology-driven transformative learning experiences began with a clear purpose—leveraging EdTech to provide access to life changing learning opportunities for students around the globe.

As practitioners, we need to rethink today’s education and how knowledge and learning can be reimagined in a world of increasing complexity and uncertainty

Fifteen years ago, Michelle Cui, the founder and CEO of Rosedale International Education, moved from China to Canada as an international student to pursue an MBA at the University of Toronto. The educational exposure instilled in her a sense of confidence in her educational path, and broadened her perspective of international education that allowed her to better understand how global education could reshape a young person’s views and contributions to the world.

In successive years, Cui worked with multinational companies in the areas of corporate growth strategy, strategic planning, M&A, operational restructuring, and business establishment. While cementing her career as an experienced management consultant, Cui couldn’t shake her inner drive to create a business that would provide exceptional education through a new, global model.

Her vision materialized in 2014 when she founded Rosedale International Education. Rosedale International Education operates as an EdTech company that delivers digital school learning solutions for transformative K-12 education. With a goal to create life-changing learning outcomes for students around the world, Cui established Rosedale Global High School, an Ontario-based independent school inspected by the Ontario Ministry of Education. The high school is authorized to grant the Ontario Secondary School Diploma (OSSD) to Rosedale Global High School graduates worldwide. Rosedale Global High School is the largest global high school in Canada, collaborating with 62 international school partners to comprise 95 school locations across 17 countries to deliver Rosedale’s OSSD curriculum-based transformative high school education. In the current school year, more than 4,000 program students are registered.

Today, Rosedale is a leader in transformative, global education, providing products and solutions to its international partner schools to collaboratively deliver transformative global education through four key components:

• A digital learning platform with management and analytics;
• Academic assets hosted on the learning platform, including Rosedale OSSD transformative curriculum, student learning content, comprehensive instructional guide for teachers, and supplemental differentiated learning recourse;
• A centralized student achievement evaluation mechanism and OSSD administration;
• Program quality assurance services, including academic integrity management, professional teacher development programs, university counselling, student success services, and program implementation support.

All teachers and students in Rosedale partner schools are supported by Rosedale’s digital learning platform in their local schools learning environment. The central resources on the digital learning platform provide the foundation of instructional excellence and student learning performance, and students learn in a physical school location with live instruction from local teachers.

Students are the true beneficiaries of Rosedale’s transformative approach to learning, which advocates and implements learning across five focus areas: transformative competency development, real world application and innovation, global citizenship education, differentiated instruction, and a personalized learning path. Technology is critical to implementing this systematic approach, and ultimately provides students the ability to develop the competencies and capacity they require to lead with empathy and cultural awareness, maintain diverse perspectives, be responsive to the economic and societal challenges of a global society, take ownership of their future path, and reach their highest potential.

“When students take ownership of their learning, they align learning with their interests, strengths, and personal ambition— transforming the view of themselves, the world around them, and what they’re capable of achieving. Our model offers learners personalized learning and holistic growth, and the opportunity to attend university anywhere in the world, without being limited by one national curriculum,” says Cui.

Of the 2022 graduating class, 100% of nearly 1,000 students received offers of admission to global universities in 14 countries, with 65% of those students accepted by the global top 100 universities and 43% by global top 50 universities.

Supporting K-12 Institutions Globally

Rosedale partners with nearly 100 leading K-12 institutions and defines its business model, growth strategies and operations with a global mindset. The company understands the new generation of Canadian EduTech companies require a global mindset from the outset in order to think beyond the traditional, broaden reach, and create a network of partnerships that can withstand any sector challenges.

For instance, in September 2019, Rosedale partnered with a high school in Nigeria to offer a three-year Rosedale Global High School program. Establishing a new international school is a complicated process and typically requires an 18-month lead time. Rosedale’s digital school learning solution enabled its new partner to offer a global high school program with localized instruction and international academic and technology support in just five months. The partner school has invested in locally hired teachers—building capacity within the Nigerian teaching community—and each local teacher receives continuous training and professional teacher development from Rosedale, empowering them to deliver transformative education in the classroom using education technology to enhance the learning environment, while also implementing subject-specific advanced instructional strategies. Rosedale’s teacher development program is widely recognized for its collaborative approach—teachers work together to problem solve and advance their skills, while also levelling up on the technology required for future students. This school year, graduates from one Nigeria-based school have received more than $600,000 CAD in scholarships from leading universities, including a first-time acceptance to MIT—the world’s top university in global rankings.

Another example is from Myanmar. In 2020, the first year of the pandemic, Rosedale partnered with an established school in Myanmar to offer a one-year Rosedale Global High School Global University Pathway program. While the pandemic brought forth incredible challenges for teachers, students, and parents all over the world, Myanmar was also under immense political pressure during an election cycle, leading to military action. Due to the political climate and COVID-19, schools were disrupted, and many students in their final year of high school were unable to write their national or international standardized exams, delaying their applications and to global universities. With Rosedale’s technology-enabled digital learning solutions, the Myanmar partner school was well-equipped to maneuver unexpected changes in their country—and shifted from classroom teaching to online instruction while ensuring academic integrity, and without sacrificing the quality of teaching and learning during an unprecedented time.

“These are just two examples from our partner schools, where our solutions empower teachers to collaboratively deliver Rosedale OSSD transformative education and create life-changing learning outcomes for students,” says Cui.

People. Technology. Collaboration.

What differentiates Rosedale is its focus on the intersection of people, tech and collaboration. It creates diverse opportunities for continuous professional development and knowledge exchange for the teachers across all partner schools, and student-centered programs support individualized growth for every student in the Rosedale community.

Rosedale further leverages EdTech to take a differentiated approach to education innovation. Utilizing technology enablement, Rosedale effectively manages the quality in the scale delivery of transformative education—data collection and analytics support Rosedale in developing on-time insights at the program, partner school, and individual student levels. Technology drives this practice and allows for continuous improvement that can be seamlessly rolled out through EdTech to all partner schools to effectively support teaching and learning around the world—empowering schools and teachers, and making the transformative OSSD curriculum accessible to more global students in their local classrooms.

The Rosedale model is based on sector collaboration. Last year, they collaborated with education sector change makers to host the Global Education Summit, which attracted practitioners from 66 countries to share best practices, stimulate new ideas, and promote sector-level knowledge exchange and collaboration. Rosedale also hosted the Global Student Success Forum with more than 35 global top 100 universities to discuss topics around student growth, holistic student success, and transition from high school to higher education. These initiatives spark innovation and a growth mindset across the sector.

“When we consider education, it is tied to social impact. As practitioners, we need to rethink today’s education and how knowledge and learning can be reimagined in a world of increasing complexity and uncertainty,” says Cui. “Together, I believe we will reshape the future of global education.”