Maple Leaf Educational Systems (MLES), a Sino-Canada educational firm that operates more than 20 international schools in China, celebrated its 15th anniversary on Friday at its Jinshitan high school campus in Dalian, Northeast China's Liaoning province.

The ceremony was attended by educational experts and people from home and abroad, Chinese and Canadian government officials, as well as teachers and students.

Shermen Jen, founder and CEO of MLES, said MLES brings international education into China by providing quality educational programs that blend the strengths of East and West.

"Our 15 years of practice shows the educational mode is a success," Jen said.

Students who graduate from Maple Leaf's high schools are granted both a Chinese diploma and Canada's British Columbia Graduation Diploma.

In past years, more than 3,500 students have graduated from Maple Leaf schools and continued their studies at universities around the world. Two-thirds of them entered the world's top 200 universities.

In 1995, Dalian Maple Leaf International School was founded with an enrollment of only 14 students. It has since grown into an educational system enrolling more than 8,000 students at schools in Dalian, Wuhan, Tianjin, Chongqing and other cities around the country.

Meanwhile, 800 overseas students from 15 countries including South Korea, Japan, and the US are studying at Maple Leaf's foreign schools.

MLES is expected to develop rapidly in coming years, building schools in most of the municipalities, provincial capitals, and key cities around China. The total enrollment will exceed 20,000 by 2015, Jen said.

.