The idea to develop Maple Bear Canadian schools grew out of the work of the Canadian Education Centre Network (CECN), a non-profit organization supported by the Government of Canada and the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada which was mandated to market Canadian education abroad to attract foreign students to study in Canada. Maple Bear was born after CECN managers overseas recognized there was a domestic demand for high quality, bilingual Canadian education from emerging middle class parents, many of whom had studied outside of their own countries in general and in Canada in particular. The first Maple Bear Canadian School to open was in Indirapuram (New Delhi), India in 2005.