Regg Cohn: How shamelessly has Doug Ford ground down Ontario’s colleges and universities? Let me count the ways

2024/02/14 Leave a comment

Excellent analysis, including how colleges are treated differently than universities and the resulting incentive for their more rapid growth in international students:

The education of Doug Ford comes at a high price.

Not for him — the premier is doing just fine.

But under his stewardship, post-secondary education has spiralled from crisis to catastrophe. It is a disaster of Ford’s own making, with implications that go far beyond Ontario’s colleges and universities.

Here’s the problem with the premier’s post-secondary playbook: He’s been playing with other people’s money — a shell game — while gambling on the outcomes.

What looked like a good deal for Ford has become a bad bet for the entire province. The chaos over surging foreign enrolments on campus, amped up by the premier, has created panicky headlines.

But if you dig a little deeper, the crisis has also created an unsavoury windfall for the province: A “head tax” on foreign students, on top of a shell game for colleges, which together buff up the provincial treasury by hundreds of millions of dollars.

That’s on top of the savings for Ford’s Progressive Conservatives by freezing funding for higher education in Ontario at a time of rising inflation (disclosure: I’m a senior fellow at Toronto Metropolitan University and also at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy).

Upon taking power in 2018, Ford ordered every post-secondary institution to cut tuition by 10 per cent — without making up the shortfall. Those fees have been frozen ever since, while government funding stagnated year after year — inflation be damned.

Ontario’s colleges, left to fend for themselves after the tuition cut and freeze, were encouraged to make up the difference by recruiting high-paying foreigners with abandon. The inflated cash flow propelled all but one of Ontario’s 24 colleges into sudden surpluses worth more than $660 million in 2022.

Conveniently, that windfall benefited Ford’s Tories because the colleges’ balance sheets show up on the books of the provincial treasury. That’s a sweet deal for Ford and his surplus-addicted finance minister, Peter Bethlenfalvy.

But the province’s universities, most of which resisted the temptation to feast on foreign students — are now in dire financial straits, with 10 of 23 now running deficits.

Happily for Ford’s Tories, those university deficits are seemingly not the province’s problem — neither fiscally nor politically. That’s because any university’s red ink doesn’t show up on the province’s balance sheet, since they are deemed autonomous institutions (unlike colleges which report directly to the government).

It’s an accident of history that manifests as an accounting quirk. But it amounts to a handy political payoff for the premier.

Moreover, Ford’s Tories have been shamelessly milking foreign students with a de facto “head tax,” which is dressed up as an international “recovery fee” for every warm body lured to Ontario. It’s not a massive amount — more than $140 million a year — but it’s profiteering all the same.

Campuses are at the breaking point. Communities are at the boiling point over housing shortages exacerbated by an unplanned foreign influx.

Forced into action by the province’s inaction, the federal government imposed a cap on foreign students and work permits last month. With cascading abuses, Ottawa had little choice but to act — Ontario broke the system, and now Queen’s Park has to take responsibility for fixing it.

The boom will fall especially hard on Ontario, which already fills 51 per cent of the permits with only 39 per cent of the population. And it will hit universities harder than colleges and private educational institutions, which cornered an outsized share of permits driven by a strategy of greedy growth.

Will the government play hardball with universities when it comes to those scarce international permits, in order to protect the foreign cash flow of colleges who are already Ford’s preferred partners for his policy of promoting the skilled trades?

Last year, it seemed the premier had seen the light. The Tories set up a fancy-sounding Blue Ribbon Panel on Post-secondary Education that quickly focused on fixing the distorted bottom line with straightforward advice:

Stop cutting tuition and stop freezing funding.

“The sector’s financial sustainability is currently at serious risk, and it will take a concerted effort to right the ship,” its report warned in November.

The outside panel recommended a one-time tuition hike of five per cent in 2024-25, followed by increases of two per cent (or higher, tied to inflation) thereafter. By the panel’s calculations, it would take a tuition increase of 25 per cent to make up for lost monies — politically unpalatable, so it urged the Ford government to increase funding by about 10 per cent with subsequent increases of at least two per cent (plus inflation).

Its report urged the government to confront its growing addiction by moving to “reduce or eliminate the student recovery fee for international students paid by colleges,” amounting to $750 a year.

Ford’s reaction? Pull out the populist playbook:

“I just don’t believe this is the time to go into these (Ontario) students’ pockets, especially the ones that are really struggling, and ask for a tuition increase,” he told reporters last month, calling instead for more “efficiencies.”

Let’s not confuse efficiencies with distortions. By profiting from the penury of post-secondary institutions — boosting his own bottom line while starving universities and contorting colleges — Ford is giving the province a costly lesson about false economies.

Source: How shamelessly has Doug Ford ground down Ontario’s colleges and universities? Let me count the ways

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

Minister was warned lifting international student work limit could undermine program

2024/02/14 Leave a comment

More on the warning and former Minister Fraser’s policy failure:

Allowing international students to work more than 20 hours a week could distract from their studies and undermine the objective of temporary foreign worker programs, public servants warned the federal government in 2022.

The caution came in documents prepared for former immigration minister Sean Fraser as Ottawa looked at waiving the restriction on the number of hours international students could work off-campus — a policy the Liberals eventually implemented.

The Canadian Press obtained the internal documents with an access-to-information request.

Waiving the cap could help alleviate labour shortages, a memorandum for the minister conceded, but it could also have other unintended consequences.

“While a temporary increase in the number of hours international students can work off-campus could help address these shortages, this could detract from the primary study goal of international students to a greater emphasis on work, circumvent the temporary foreign worker programs and give rise to further program integrity concerns with the international student program,” the memo said.

Canada’s bloated international student program has been heavily scrutinized in recent months as part of a larger critique of Liberal immigration policies that have fuelled rapid population growth and contributed to the country’s housing crunch.

That scrutiny led the federal government to introduce a cap on study permits over the next two years, as it tries to get a handle on the program.

More than 900,000 foreign students had visas to study in Canada last year, which is more than three times the number 10 years ago.

Critics have questioned the dramatic spike in international student enrolments at shady post-secondary institutions and have flagged concerns about the program being a backdoor to permanent residency.

The memo said removing the limit for off-campus work would be in “stark contrast” to the temporary foreign worker programs, which requires employers to prove that they need a migrant worker and that no Canadian or permanent resident is available to do the job.

Fraser ultimately announced in October 2022 that the federal government would waive the restriction until the end of 2023 to ease labour shortages across the country.

The waiver only applied to students currently in the country or those who had already applied, in order to not incentivize foreign nationals to obtain a study permit only to work in Canada.

In December, Immigration Minister Marc Miller extended the policy until April 30, 2024 and floated the idea of setting the cap at 30 hours a week thereafter.

In an interview with The Canadian Press on Monday, Miller said he extended the waiver because he didn’t want to interfere with students’ work arrangements in the middle of an academic year.

“What I really didn’t want to do is impact students in a current year that have made their financial calculations about how they will sustain themselves and how they will be able to pay for the tuition and rent and food,” Miller said.

Miller said internal work by the department shows more than 80 per cent of international students are currently working more than 20 hours a week.

Waiving the number of hours international students could work was the right call given the labour shortages Canada was facing, but the policy was never meant to be permanent, he said.

Job vacancies soared to more than a million in the second quarter of 2022, but have steadily decreased since then as the economy slows.

Miller said he’s now considering making a permanent change to the cap that would set it somewhere between 20 and 40 hours a week.

“It’s not credible that someone can work 40 hours and do a proper program,” Miller said.

He said the goal is to come up with a cap that gives students the ability to get good work experience and help them pay the bills, all while not undermining their studies.

“So what does a reasonable number of hours look like for someone here studying, knowing that they are paying three to four times, sometimes five times the price of a domestic student?” Miller said.

“I think that’s above 20 hours.”

Source: Minister was warned lifting international student work limit could undermine program

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , , ,

‘Labour shortage is real.’ Canadian retailers push back on Ottawa’s foreign labour cap

2024/02/12 1 Comment

The next interest group opposing caps:

Canada’s immigration minister is getting pushback from companies that heavily rely on foreign labour following the federal government’s announcement that it will cap international student visas.

Marc Miller said companies, including “big-box stores,” are already lobbying against the planned reduction in permitted work hours for international students in comments made Tuesday to BNN Bloomberg.

“Some of the big-box stores, some of the businesses that have international students, have pushed relatively hard to preserve the 40-hour work week,” Miller said. “Some student groups call for it as well because a lot of employers want you to be able to commit to more than 20 hours.”

The Retail Council of Canada — which represents 45,000 store fronts across the country, including Canada’s largest grocers, Walmart and Amazon Canada — in an email said that “the labour shortage is real, and finding people has never been more difficult.” Many of the big box stores the RCC represents employ international students, said spokesperson Michelle Wasylyshen.

Source: ‘Labour shortage is real.’ Canadian retailers push back on Ottawa’s foreign labour cap

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

Quebec: Avec la baisse d’étudiants indiens, les collèges privés meurent à petit feu

2024/02/12 Leave a comment

Likely similar to what will happen elsewhere in Canada:

Battant des records d’inscriptions pendant la pandémie, les étudiants étrangers, surtout indiens, ont aujourd’hui déserté les collèges privés non subventionnés, a constaté Le Devoir. Acculés à la faillite, ces établissements disent avoir été décimés par la nouvelle mesure d’immigration du gouvernement du Québec, qui a coupé l’accès au permis de travail postdiplôme.

« Notre réseau est en train de mourir », a laissé tomber Ginette Gervais, présidente de l’Association des collèges privés non subventionnés du Québec (ACPNS). « Certains vont tirer leur épingle du jeu, mais ceux qui s’étaient tournés vers l’international pour avoir plus de clientèle vont avoir du mal. »

Selon des données fournies par le ministère de l’Immigration, de la Francisation et de l’Intégration (MIFI), le nombre d’étudiants étrangers fréquentant ces collèges est en chute libre. Alors qu’ils étaient plus de 10 000 pendant les années de la pandémie — avec un record d’inscrits de 19 000 en 2020-2021 —, ils étaient à peine plus de 1300 à la rentrée scolaire de 2023-2024. 

Les étudiants d’origine indienne, qui constituaient alors plus de 85 % de la clientèle étrangère, n’en représentent plus que 5 %. En effet : seulement 78 étudiants indiens étaient inscrits dans ces collèges privés à l’automne dernier alors qu’ils ont déjà été plus de 17 000.

Cette baisse coïncide avec la décision prise en 2022 par les ex-ministres de l’Enseignement supérieur et de l’Immigration, Danielle McCann et Jean Boulet, qui avaient convaincu Ottawa de réserver l’accès au permis de travail postdiplôme uniquement aux immigrants diplômés d’un programme d’étude subventionné.  Entrée en vigueur le 1er septembre dernier, la nouvelle mesure a ainsi coupé l’accès à un permis de travail qui pouvait éventuellement mener à la résidence permanente.

Selon le MIFI, ce changement visait à protéger « l’intégrité » en lien avec le recrutement de ces étudiants étrangers, et à contrer des « stratagèmes d’immigration » confirmés par une enquête du ministère de l’Enseignement supérieur. « Plusieurs établissements privés, en grande majorité anglophones, servaient de passerelle à la résidence permanente et au permis de travail pour des ressortissants indiens et chinois », a-t-on affirmé au cabinet de la ministre de l’Immigration. Des médias, dont Le Devoir, avaient levé le voile sur les pratiques douteuses de certains de ces établissements et des problèmes liés à la qualité de l’enseignement.

Une mesure qui fait mal

Ginette Gervais, de l’ACPNS, l’affirme sans équivoque : la mesure de Québec a été « le premier coup » donné à la trentaine d’établissements privés qu’elle représente. « La perte du permis de travail postdiplôme a causé beaucoup de dommages », dit-elle, en mentionnant que la goutte qui a fait déborder le vase est l’exigence de la connaissance du français pour obtenir une attestation d’études collégiales (AEC). 

« S’ils n’ont plus d’étudiants, ça va être difficile pour les collèges de survivre. » Depuis les dix dernières années, devant la diminution du nombre d’inscrits québécois, ces collèges s’étaient mis au recrutement international. « Tout le monde, même les universités et les cégeps, s’était tourné vers l’international. Et nous, on a bénéficié du fait qu’on offrait des formations plus courtes. » 

Président de Collège Canada, qui possède cinq campus partout au Québec, Cyrus Shani ne peut que constater que d’enlever l’accès au permis de travail a fait très mal. « L’impact est immense », a-t-il confié au Devoir. « On avait 5000 étudiants internationaux et locaux, mais depuis les changements, on est tombé à 300 ! »

Fondé en 1976, son collège a d’abord été une école de langues avant d’obtenir en 2003 un permis pour donner des formations de niveau collégial. « Mes collèges ne sont pas rentables. Mais j’ai d’autres compagnies, j’ai une clinique aussi, et c’est ce qui me permet de sauver mes activités d’enseignement », a expliqué M. Shani.

Il dit ne pas en vouloir au gouvernement, mais plutôt aux collèges et aux agences de recrutement qui ont nui. Certains actionnaires de la firme de recrutement Rising Phoenix International avaient d’ailleurs fait l’objet d’une enquête par l’Unité permanente anticorruption (UPAC). « La réglementation, c’est une bonne chose », convient-il. Sauf qu’elle a mené à l’agonie de nombreux établissements qui ne le méritaient pas, selon lui, et que cela prive le gouvernement « de millions en retombées économiques ».

Un collège fermé

L’Institut supérieur d’informatique, qui a offert des formations de niveau collégial pendant 25 ans, a été contraint de fermer ses portes en novembre 2022. « On s’est accroché aussi longtemps qu’on a pu », a dit Henriette Morin, qui dirigeait le collège. Plusieurs difficultés, notamment un litige avec Rising Phoenix International, ont sapé toutes les ressources financières de l’école qui a dû faire faillite. « On a fait le maximum pour que les étudiants puissent récupérer leur argent », a tenu à préciser Mme Morin.

Le resserrement autour de l’octroi du permis de travail n’est pas étranger aux problèmes vécus. « Tout ça est lié », note-t-elle. Le fait que son établissement ait tenté de recruter des étudiants indiens, dont l’afflux massif soulevait plusieurs questions au sein du gouvernement, n’a pas aidé. « Qui sait ce qui serait arrivé si on avait tenté de recruter des étudiants en Afrique francophone et au Maghreb. Mais on leur accordait beaucoup moins facilement de visa. »

Pour la présidente de l’ACPNS, les collèges privés non subventionnés n’auront d’autres choix que de se redéfinir et trouver de nouveaux marchés. « Mais ça ne se fait pas en claquant des doigts, soutient Ginette Gervais. On a bien essayé d’expliquer notre réalité [au gouvernement] et les impacts que [ses décisions] ont eus sur nos activités, mais on a très peu d’écoute. »

Si les collèges privés non subventionnés sont « morts » dans leur forme actuelle, ils devront se réinventer, croit aussi Cyrus Shani, de Collège Canada. « En attendant, on vit au jour le jour et on espère que Québec va faire des changements qui vont aider les bons collèges, ceux qui contribuent réellement à la société québécoise. »

Source: Avec la baisse d’étudiants indiens, les collèges privés meurent à petit feu

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , , , ,

Here’s how Canada will decide which colleges and universities can be trusted with international students

2024/02/09 Leave a comment

Leaked draft plan. Would likely be simpler just to make the main criteria being a public institution without satellite strip mall campuses…:

…Although the department refused to say if the plan has been updated since it was first presented in August, it offered a first glimpse at what precisely immigration officials were going to look at when assessing the schools’ legitimacy and capacity to bring in international students.

“The rapid growth in intake has disrupted processing times and service standards,” said the 11-page proposal, obtained by the Star. “There are concerns that many (designated learning institutions) have become increasingly dependent on international students for tuition revenue, in some cases, not providing international students a positive education experience in Canada.

“There is a belief that processing times are impacting Canada’s ability to attract top international students, and that, compounded with the reported cases of international student exploitation, this may harm Canada’s reputation as a destination of choice.”

It said the department had developed a matrix that could be used to determine which institutions would be eligible. The index would be based on seven indicators, including an institution’s:

  • Percentage of students who remain in the original program after their first year in Canada;
  • Percentage of students who complete their program within the expected length of study;
  • Percentage of total revenue that’s derived from international enrolment; 
  • Dollar value and percentage of total scholarships and grants to students from less developed countries;
  • Dollar value in mental health support as well as career and immigration counselling per international student versus the average tuition they pay;
  • Total number and percentage of international students living in housing they administered; and
  • Average teacher-student ratio for the 10 courses with the highest international enrolment.

All in all, said the plan, the information will help ensure the student intake is sustainable, only “genuine” learners are recruited, high-quality education is supported, and graduates demonstrate strong outcomes….

Critic Earl Blaney said the trusted regime is a step in the right direction, but he is doubtful whether it could be implemented in time for the fall semester. He says few institutions would have all the data handily available and the compilation process must be standardized to make the information comparable and meaningful from coast to coast.

Currently there are more than 1,500 designated learning institutions authorized to accept international students, though not all are in post-secondary education. 

“They’re trying to vet the quality of the institution and the student experience, which I definitely support,” said Blaney, an education agent and international education policy analyst based in London, Ont. 

“There’s a lot to figure out here. I just don’t think they had time to implement something that would not be criticized or ridiculed, essentially when they weren’t getting the data that they needed to start the evaluation process.”

According to the plan, in assessing trusted institutions, officials would also rely on the Immigration Department’s own data such as study permit approval rate, “adverse outcomes” of students and diversity of their country of origin at a school. They would also examine how many graduates from the institution become permanent residents, as well as their language proficiency and earnings when they apply for immigration. 

Given that international students are used increasingly to serve Canada’s labour market needs, Blaney said the trusted scheme should also look at what programs they enrol in at a school to ensure those churning out talents that the country needs are prioritized.

source: Here’s how Canada will decide which colleges and universities can be trusted with international students

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

Looking for an ‘IELTS clear girl’: Why Canada’s international student reforms may spoil these kinds of marriages in India

2024/02/08 Leave a comment

Interesting read and suspect more of these stories will come out as the new restrictions on international students come into effect:

At first glance, it looks just like any matrimonial profile, detailing the age, height and education background of the boy looking for a match. But then there’s a twist: Only an “IELTS clear girl” should bother responding.

In another ad, a young woman with a bachelor’s degree in science is looking for a groom interested in moving to Canada and willing to bear all expenses. And her biggest asset, as advertised: “IELTS 7 band.”

IELTS stands for the International English Language Testing System, one of the world’s most popular English proficiency tests for higher education and immigration — and an entry requirement to come to Canada. International students need a minimum overall score of 6 in writing, reading, listening and speaking English for admission to undergraduate and diploma programs in this country.

A perfect match would mean the bride could get the boy’s family to pay for her tuition and living costs of studying abroad. In exchange, the groom could come to Canada on an open work permit, accompanying the spouse. And they’d both hope to one day earn their permanent residence here.

“These are real marriages and there’s nothing illegal about it,” said Rajinder Taggar, an investigative reporter based in Chandigarh, India. “You can find these matrimonial ads very easily, in all the newspapers. People make no secret about it.”

But the practice of so-called “IELTS marriages” is coming to an end, quickly, after Canada’s announcement last week to tighten up the international student program. Among the many changes made by Ottawa is stop issuing work permits to the spouses of international students in undergraduate and diploma programs.

“The boy marries the girl and his family puts money in her studies, so the spouse can come,” Vinay Hari, a prominent education agent based in Jalandhar, told the Star.  “Now that will stop. The girl will not get the money for the education in Canada.

“They will file divorces and their relationships will be terminated. It’s already happening.”

Almost 40 per cent of Canada’s international students these days come from India, where prospective students are being hardest hit by Canada’s recent changes to the international student program.

Last month, Immigration Minister Marc Miller announced a plan to slash the number of new study permits issued across Canada this year by 35 per cent from last year’s level, to 364,000, while leaving the number of applicants accepted in master’s and doctoral programs, as well as those admitted to primary and secondary schools, uncapped.

Other new or recent measures include:

• Effective on Jan. 1, doubling the cost-of-living financial requirement for study permit applicants from $10,000 to $20,635 in addition to their first year of tuition and travel costs;

• Starting Sept. 1, stopping to issue post-graduation work permits to international students who complete programs provided under so-called Public College-Private Partnerships;

• In the weeks ahead, the spouses of most international students will no longer be granted work permits, with the exception of those studying in graduate schools or in a professional program such as medicine or law.

These three measures are intended to raise the bar and plug the incentives for people to take advantage of the international student program in what Miller has described as a “backdoor entry” into Canada.

According to Taggar, the Indian journalist, IELTS marriages have been happening for some time, but they became more common with Canada’s open policy to welcome international students and the marketing by unscrupulous agents to promote international studies as an immigration scheme.

“Girls work harder and are smarter. And they pass the IELTS exam,” said Taggar, who has published in the Tribune, Indian Express, Hindustan Times, and Times of India. “Some of them come from poor families but they are good at studies. The boys’ families will pay for the education. They want to come to Canada and become permanent residents. That’s all.”

Removing the spousal work permit for students in undergraduate and college programs, which are normally cheaper and shorter than postgraduate studies, would deter that kind of exploitation of the international student program, he said.

Hari, the education agent, said he has received more than 100 inquiries in the past week from prospective students who asked to withdraw their applications for programs delivered under public-private college partnerships because they will no longer grant postgraduation work permits.

These partnerships are mostly between smaller public colleges in remote communities in the province and private colleges in Greater Toronto, where international students prefer to live — prompted by the public institutions’ need to stay afloat amid declining domestic enrolment and provincial funding cut.

The business model allows taxpayer-funded colleges to provide curriculum at a fee to private career college partners, who can hire their own non-unionized instructors to deliver the academic programs in the region.

Graduates from the private colleges then get a public college credential, which made them eligible for a postgraduate work permit as a pathway for permanent residence.

After the Jan. 22 changes, “they told us, ‘Sir, I don’t want to go to a (public-private partnership college). Transfer my application to the (public college) main campus,'” Hari said. “They don’t want to go to Hanson College in Toronto or Brampton. They want to go to Cambrian College in Sudbury.”

Over the last five years, said Hari, Canada has gained a bad reputation in India as a destination for immigration through education. As a result, many Indian students are enrolled in college diploma programs that give them quick access to work permits but won’t necessarily advance their employment and career prospects.

He said serious learners now tend to prefer the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia, while those who want to immigrate come to study in Canada.

“Thousands of these students are coming for these general business programs,” said Hari, who has helped more than 11,000 students come to study in Canada in the last 14 years. “Did Canada produce that many businessmen and entrepreneurs?

“This immigration scam has given students the opportunity to work full time. So students are not coming but labourers are coming.“

Hari said many prospective students and their families in India are panicking in the wake of Miller’s announcement because the price tag has now gone even higher, with education agents quickly shifting to promote and market the master’s programs in Canada.

“Canada has to support the quality education. They have to fund public colleges and universities,” he said. “The PPPs have created a mess and I think Canada is now on track again.”

Nitin Chawla, an education agent and immigration consultant based in Ludhiana in Punjab state, said he’s already seeing the impacts of Canada’s new rules as inquiries about Canada have slowed down and most people walking into his office are now exploring the opportunities to study in other countries, such as New Zealand.

While these changes might be good for Canada because they’ll raise the qualifying requirements and help weed out the “weaker” students, Chawla said they are going to have ripple effects on the consulting industry and employment in India, where tens of thousands of people make a living selling immigration to this country.

“Here in Punjab, the first word a baby learns is Canada,” he said. “People will not stop going to Canada, but the number will drop very badly. People have already started withdrawing (visa application) files.”

He predicted many people in India will lose their consulting and recruitment jobs, including some of his 40 staffers, and so will many employed in the postsecondary education sector in Canada.

In a recent entry on his blog, Alex Usher, an expert on higher education, said the federal crackdown on the public-private college partnerships — upwards of 125,000 international students in Greater Toronto — is going to take at least $1.5 billion in revenue out of the hands of Ontario colleges.

“Without the promise of a post-graduation work visa, it is hard to see how those spots are going to stay filled,” wrote Usher, president of Higher Education Strategy Associates. “I’d wager a couple of the northern colleges, who used PPPs as a way to escape the brutal economics of teaching in the more sparsely populated north, will be in need of a bailout soon.”

Source: Looking for an ‘IELTS clear girl’: Why Canada’s international student reforms may spoil these kinds of marriages in India

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , , , , , ,

Globe editorial: Let’s get Canada’s foreign student program back to the classroom

2024/02/05 Leave a comment

Well said:

…

The program is in chaos, a failure of federalism, where both Ottawa and the provinces have neglected to work together to execute their respective responsibilities. The program should never have been tailored to address short-term labour market demands for truck drivers and child care workers.

Canada can have an international student program that shines again, if both levels of government reconnect with its original, higher purpose.

source: Let’s get Canada’s foreign student program back to the classroom

Filed under Immigration Tagged with ,

Keller: Here’s a crazy idea: How about a student visa program whose main beneficiary is Canada

2024/02/03 Leave a comment

Not crazy and worth having this more extreme approach as a basis to compare current and future policies:

….Turning things around calls for doing far more than what federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller announced last month.

Allowing visa students to work an unlimited number of hours off-campus fed the business model for unscrupulous educational operators. Mr. Miller says that in the spring, he may reduce the work limit to 30 hours a week. He needs to go much farther. To end the tuition-for-minimum-wage-work trade, he has to end the right of visa students to work, with the exception of those in highly-paid jobs.

Similarly, post-graduation work permits should only go to those who’ve been offered a highly-paid job. All other graduates will have to leave Canada on graduation, their tuition having purchased education but nothing more. If you have a job offer paying at least, say, $75,000, you get the work permit. If not, you don’t.

One more thing: the feds should raise the cost of a student visa. It currently costs just $150. How about $5,000?

Those three simple steps would separate Canada’s educational wheat from the chaff. And it would do so without provinces and the feds having to micromanage which programs of study are worthy of student visas or work visas or post-graduation visas – a system rife with lobbying and the potential for corruption.

What I’m proposing would put the weakest institutions, public and private, out of the student-visa business. But it would strengthen the strongest and highest-quality institutions, including skilled-trades training programs, and even open new doors for them….

Source: Here’s a crazy idea: How about a student visa program whose main beneficiary is Canada

Filed under Immigration Tagged with ,

HESA: How bad is it going to get in Ontario? Really bad. 

2024/01/31 Leave a comment

Usual frank and insightful analysis:

This isn’t just cluelessness. The Ministry here isn’t even clueful with respect to understanding how to even get a clue in the first place. The cluetrain? It has left the shed but there’s nobody on board (ok I will stop now).

So, all of this is bad, certainly, but it’s arguably not as bad as Colleges Ontario’s 1326-word statement responding to the federal changes, which is a masterclass in failing to read the room. Go on, read it. Utterly self-centered, all about protecting their revenue schemes, no sense whatsoever that the whole reason this scenario is occurring is that they lost social license to keep bringing in more international students and that the public has serious (albeit not necessarily well-founded) views about the quality of PPPs and the quality assurance. Tone-deaf is putting it mildly.

(Of course, Colleges Ontario is a membership organization, and when it comes to membership organizations, they necessarily go with the lowest-common denominator. My guess is that there a few colleges that probably know this statement was a bad idea, but the ultras won out.)

(Also: I am taking bets on when the rest of the sector decides to throw Conestoga under the bus for ruining the international student thing for everyone else. Issuing acceptances for 34,000 study permit students in 2023 alone—in a city with under 400,000 students—was an absurd cash-grab with no thought as to impact on the local community. As soon as the distribution of spots starts, you know the other colleges are going to argue hard against Conestoga getting a share of 2024 visas based on its 2023 share. Should be amusing).

Meanwhile, Ontario universities had not issued a joint statement as of Sunday evening (when this blog was written) but as near as I can tell, the universities’ position is going to be “colleges created this problem, any balancing of student visa numbers should be done on their backs, not ours.” Which has a certain truth to it but is a long way from the full truth (within the university sector, you can expect Algoma will attract antagonists the way Conestoga does in the college sector, albeit on a more modest scale).

In other words, everything here in Ontario is a mess. It will be an interesting to compare Ontario’s…omnishambles…what British Columbia’s plan looks like. My understanding is that it will be published Monday (tomorrow for me, yesterday for you). I apologize in advance that due to extensive work commitments this week, I won’t be able to cover the BC announcement until next week. ‘til then: keep your eyes peeled. These files are moving fast.

Source: HESA: How bad is it going to get in Ontario? Really bad. 

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

Omidvar: Be wary of simple solutions on the foreign student issue

2024/01/31 Leave a comment

IMO, a reasonably targeted and focused set of measures:

Blunt instruments draw blood from all parts of the body, when a sharp scalpel is better suited to the surgery. Mr. Miller has chosen a blunt instrument. It will certainly draw blood. The underbelly of the industry, that he refers to as “puppy mills,” should and will close down. The limitation of postgraduation work permits to students from those institutions will limit the number who end up working behind the tills at big box stores and other low-paying outlets. Will these chains raise wages to get the staff they need? Will unemployed Canadians work in the retail, hospitality and tourism sectors over a sustained period of time? These are questions we don’t have the answers to.

We now face the serious risk that domestic students will face a drop in the quality of education they receive as universities and colleges lose fees from international students they have come to rely on. Provincial governments need to wake up. The “blue-ribbon” task force struck by Ontario Premier Doug Ford has made sensible proposals on stabilizing funding for universities and colleges, such as “a one-time significant adjustment in per-student funding for colleges and universities to recognize unusually high inflationary cost increases over the past several years,” and “a commitment to more modest annual adjustments over the next three to five years.” These types of recommendations need to be heeded and implemented promptly.

We have allowed ourselves to get tangled up in a sticky problem of our own making by all levels of government. But we can untangle ourselves from it if we go back to the basics of education. Providing high-quality education for Canadian students should not be reliant on external forces. Providing excellent education for foreign students must become an aspiration so we can educate young people from all over the world and they can take a bit of Canada back with them. Unfortunately, in higher education in Canada today, the tail is wagging the dog.

Ratna Omidvar is an independent senator from Ontario.

Source: Be wary of simple solutions on the foreign student issue

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

← Older posts

Newer posts →