Coquitlam (ko-kwheet-lum for those not from the area) is a town slightly southeast of Vancouver, British Columbia in Canada. The greater Vancouver area has an fairly high Chinese population, about 17%. In the 2001 census, 15% of the population spoke a Chinese dialect. The town is also home to British Columbia’s only French-speaking neighborhood, Maillardville. According to the school district, they held a lottery to assign the 90 Kindergarten spaces to the 140 applications. Here’s the top of the article from Coquitlam NOW
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Jennifer McFee, Coquitlam NOW
Published: Friday, December 11, 2009
Education options are increasing for Tri-Cities students as the school district prepares to introduce its first-ever Mandarin bilingual program in September 2010.
The program will be launched in two kindergarten and two Grade 1 classes at Walton Elementary next school year. Class time will be divided equally between English and Mandarin instruction, with a separate teacher for each language. This 50-50 bilingual split differs from French immersion programs, which offer 80- to 100-per-cent instruction in the second language.
The process began a year ago when a group of parents banded together to form the Tri-Cities Mandarin Initiative Committee in hopes of bringing the bilingual program to local schools.
Read more here.
Mandarin Immersion Parents Council 
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