ICYMI: How can Canada get the international students it needs for the jobs it has? A new report calls for a ‘course correction’

2022/09/12 Leave a comment

Somewhat amusing, as all such reports say “Canada should do more,” with less discussion of trade-offs and relative effectiveness of existing programs. Addition is always easier than subtraction for governments and advocacy groups.

Not sure how a wage-subsidy program for international students, even in high demand fields, would be received by the Canadian public.

And more fundamental questions remain regarding international students and immigration pathways remain, not only with respect to study areas but also the type of institution (university, college, private), as others have noted:

Canada needs to do a much better job of targeting and supporting international students in order to deal with this country’s specific labour shortages — such as the recent “wake-up call” in health care — a new report says.

While foreign students are well-represented in STEM and business administration, their numbers need to go up in health care, some trades and services to meet Canada’s future labour market needs, says the report from RBC Economics & Thought Leadership.

Tweaking immigration selection to favour international students with a background in STEM, health care and in trades, and providing these students more work-integrated learning opportunities through co-ops or internships would go a long way, the researchers say.

Getting a Canadian education and work experience has increasingly become the pathway to permanent residence for many newcomers.

Every year, about 17 per cent of all new permanent residents and almost 40 per cent of immigrants in the economic category — newcomers chosen for their job skills and education — have studied in Canada.

However, a lack of networks and relevant work experience have been the primary barriers keeping some from finding a related job after they graduate, according to the report Course Correction: How international students can help solve Canada’s labour crisis.

Of the international students who have started studying in Canada since 2010, about one third later successfully acquired permanent residence. Migrating to Canada through the student pathway is an expensive route, with international tuition fees in universities averaging $33,000. “For many, a Canadian education may not yield the desired return on investment,” the report cautioned.

“We need to do more than just stamping a study permit and saying, ‘Figure it out on your own and we can’t wait to see you on the other side.’ There needs to be better collaboration and better support from start to finish,” says Ben Richardson, the report’s co-author.

“The international student cohort can be a very productive source of future immigrants and citizens to Canada, but we need to ensure that the variety of stakeholders … working in this space are working together.”

Richardson said Canada has done a lot of things right in attracting international students, by offering them postgraduate work permits for as long as three years and pathways for permanent residence based on the Canadian work experience they acquire.

Those policies have helped make Canada an international education powerhouse, surpassing the United Kingdom and becoming the third most common destination for international students behind the United States and Australia.

Enrolment of international students at Canadian post-secondary institutions has grown from 7.2 per cent in 2010 to almost 20 per cent of the overall enrolment in 2020.

Enrolment in short-cycle post-secondary programs, which can be as short as eight months, in colleges has notably grown twice as fast as other programs since 2016, as it’s viewed as a fast-track for immigration, said the report.

“Canada needs college-educated students to address labour shortages across the economy. But some students in short-cycle programs have a longer route to the labour market and permanent residency, and some may not have a path at all,” noted the report.

“With colleges now taking in 40 per cent of Canada’s post-secondary international students, versus 24 per cent in 2010, their admission choices are material to Canada’s foreign talent pipeline.”

While many colleges and universities are working with employers and governments to create training and bridging programs to meet changing labour market needs, the report calls for a more “concerted policy shift” to narrow the skills gap.

Getting international students to stay often hinges on what happens as school ends and they set their eyes on the pathways to careers and permanent residence.

“Almost all the countries that compete directly with Canada, whether it is the UK, the U.S. and Australia, they’re all raising their game and new competitors, such as India, Singapore and China, are looking to attract these same students,” says Yadullah Hussain, the study’s other co-author.

“So, how do we, from a place of strength, improve and upgrade the policies that we have?”

During the pandemic, the federal government prioritized immigration processing for international students and temporary residents in selected jobs through special measures, the report said.

These changes in selection criteria not only help serve Canada’s labour market needs but also inform prospective international students about where the country’s priorities are when choosing their fields of study.

The U.K., U.S. and Australia have already made plans to target STEM students to make it easier for them to enter and stay in those countries.

The report recommends Canada invest in a wage-subsidy program for international students in high-demand fields and ease their access to work-integrated learning, exempting them from additional work permits for co-op terms and internships.

“We’re operating from a position of strength, but we can’t take that for granted and rest on our laurels,” said Richardson.

Source: How can Canada get the international students it needs for the jobs it has? A new report calls for a ‘course correction’

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Immigration Minister says his department has shifted focus to international student visas as many await last-minute approval

2022/08/31 Leave a comment

Yet the latest example of management weaknesses at IRCC as it appears to lurch from one program backlog to another. The risk is, of course, that the shift in resources to address student visas will adversely impact other programs, leading to future negative headlines:

Immigration Minister Sean Fraser says his department has shifted its focus toward tackling backlogs in student visa applications, as many students who have been accepted to attend Canadian universities and colleges this semester wait nervously for their immigration approvals.

The minister made the comments Monday as part of the first news conference by the task force to improve government services. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the team of cabinet ministers in June when the federal government was facing heavy public criticism for failing to provide basic services, such as timely passport delivery or efficient traveller processing at Canadian airports.

Mr. Fraser said his department recently shifted its focus away from work permits to tackle the demand for student visas.

“We had been focusing over the course of the summer on processing as many work permits as possible to help address the labour shortage. We’ve made a pivot, and through the month of August, we expect that we’re going to process a little more than 104,000 additional study permits,” he said. “There has been an absolute explosion in demand when it comes to Canada’s International Student Program in recent years.”

The student visa delays recently prompted a complaint from the Indian High Commission in Ottawa. India is the largest source country for international postsecondary students.

In addition to Mr. Fraser’s update, Monday’s news conference included assurances from Families, Children and Social Development Minister Karina Gould that passport wait times had improved and an update from Transport Minister Omar Alghabra, who said delays and cancelled flights have been dramatically reduced.

Opposition MPs said the task force is little more than a public relations exercise. They also say some of the improvements in areas such as passports and travel delays can be attributed to the fact that the summer travel season is coming to an end.

As for the Immigration Minister’s comments about student visas, Conservative and NDP MPs said this is part of a continuing pattern of shifting focus from one crisis to another, which they say ultimately creates bigger problems for the system as a whole.

Conservative MP Jasraj Singh Hallan said the students awaiting visas are expecting to start classes shortly.

“There are many students that are still left in limbo in this immigration backlog,” he said. As for the task force, he said many of the members are the same ministers who are ultimately responsible for the service issues.

“This task force really hasn’t shown or done anything yet,” he said.

NDP MP Jenny Kwan said Canada’s immigration system, including student visa applications, is in a state of chaos. She said operating in a constant state of “crisis management mode” is not sustainable.

Ms. Kwan said there should be independent reviews of the key departments to determine why services are failing.

“The task force was established as a political cover-up,” she said.

International students from outside Canada pay tuition that is often more than two or three times higher than those paid by domestic students.

Naman Gupta, a 22-year-old student in New Delhi, India, was planning to attend York University this fall to pursue a postgraduate certificate.

His study permit has not come through and he said unless something changes in a matter of days, he’ll defer coming to Canada until the start of the January term. However the $17,000 in tuition he paid won’t be returned in the meantime, he said.

“It’s going to be tough. All my plans are held up,” Mr. Gupta said. “I’m pretty stressed.”

He said he expected the visa processing would have been expedited to ensure that students could arrive in time for the start of their courses.

“I would’ve appreciated if they could apply more compassion to the situation,” Mr. Gupta said. “The response is slow.”

Pallavi Dang, who lives in New Delhi, applied for her study permit in March. She’s disappointed that more than five months later she still hasn’t heard whether she will be approved. Department guidelines said respondents can normally expect an answer in eight weeks, and that current average processing times are about 12 weeks.

She said she had made plans to hand over her business while she was away, but now she’ll need to change course.

“All that planning is on hold,” Ms. Dang said. “I’m not able to take another step.”

Paul Davidson, president of Universities Canada, an umbrella group that lobbies on behalf of nearly 100 Canadian universities, said Canada trails countries such as Britain and Australia in visa processing.

He said there has to be more federal government investment in IT capacity to speed up processing.

“I think that’s really the solution,” Mr. Davidson said. “There’s all-party support for international students, there’s a good policy climate, but it’s the operational reality that needs to improve.”

Source: Immigration Minister says his department has shifted focus to international student visas as many await last-minute approval

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Trudel: Intelligence artificielle discriminatoire

2022/08/31 Leave a comment

Somewhat shallow analysis, as the only area that IRCC is using AI is with respect to visitor visas, not international students or other categories (unless that has changed). So Trudel’s argumentation may be based on a false understanding.

While concerns regarding AI are legitimate and need to be addressed, bias and noise are common to human decision making.

And differences in outcomes don’t necessarily reflect bias and discrimination but these differences do signal potential issues:

Les étudiants francophones internationaux subissent un traitement qui a toutes les allures de la discrimination systémique. Les Africains, surtout francophones, encaissent un nombre disproportionné de refus de permis de séjourner au Canada pour fins d’études. On met en cause des systèmes d’intelligence artificielle (IA) utilisés par les autorités fédérales en matière d’immigration pour expliquer ces biais systémiques.

Le député Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe rappelait ce mois-ci que « les universités francophones arrivent […] en tête du nombre de demandes d’études refusées. Ce ne sont pas les universités elles-mêmes qui les refusent, mais bien le gouvernement fédéral. Par exemple, les demandes d’étudiants internationaux ont été refusées à 79 % à l’Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières et à 58 % à l’Université du Québec à Chicoutimi. Pour ce qui est de l’Université McGill, […] on parle de 9 % ».

En février, le vice-recteur de l’Université d’Ottawa, Sanni Yaya, relevait qu’« au cours des dernières années, de nombreuses demandes de permis, traitées par Immigration, Réfugiés et Citoyenneté Canada, ont été refusées pour des motifs souvent incompréhensibles et ont demandé des délais anormalement longs. » Il s’agit pourtant d’étudiants qui ont des bourses garanties par leur établissement et un bon dossier. Le vice-recteur se demande à juste titre s’il n’y a pas là un préjugé implicite de la part de l’agent responsable de leur évaluation, convaincu de leur intention de ne pas quitter le Canada une fois que sera expiré leur permis d’études.

En somme, il existe un faisceau d’indices donnant à conclure que les outils informatiques d’aide à la décision utilisés par les autorités fédérales amplifient la discrimination systémique à l’encontre des étudiants francophones originaires d’Afrique.

Outils faussés

Ce cafouillage doit nous interpeller à propos des préjugés amplifiés par les outils d’IA. Tout le monde est concerné, car ces technologies font partie intégrante de la vie quotidienne. Les téléphones dotés de dispositifs de reconnaissance faciale ou les assistants domestiques ou même les aspirateurs « intelligents », sans parler des dispositifs embarqués dans plusieurs véhicules, carburent à l’IA.

La professeure Karine Gentelet et l’étudiante Lily-Cannelle Mathieu expliquent, dans un article diffusé sur le site de l’Observatoire international sur les impacts sociétaux de l’IA et du numérique, que les technologies d’IA, bien que souvent présentées comme étant neutres, sont marquées par l’environnement social duquel elles sont issues. Elles tendent à reproduire et même à amplifier les préjugés et les apports de pouvoir inéquitables.

Les chercheuses rappellent que plusieurs études ont montré que, si elles ne sont pas adéquatement encadrées, ces technologies excluent des populations racisées, ou bien les surreprésentent au sein de catégories sociales considérées comme « problématiques » ou encore, fonctionnent inadéquatement lorsqu’elles sont appliquées à des individus racisés. Elles peuvent accentuer les tendances discriminatoires dans divers processus décisionnels, comme la surveillance policière, des diagnostics médicaux, des décisions de justice, des processus d’embauche ou d’admission scolaire, ou même le calcul des taux hypothécaires.

Une loi nécessaire

En juin dernier, le ministre fédéral de l’Innovation, des Sciences et de l’Industrie a présenté le projet de loi C-27 afin d’encadrer l’usage des technologies d’intelligence artificielle. Le projet de loi entend imposer des obligations de transparence et de reddition de comptes aux entreprises qui font un usage important des technologies d’IA.

Le projet propose d’interdire certaines conduites relativement aux systèmes d’IA qui peuvent causer un préjudice sérieux aux individus. Il comporte des dispositions afin de responsabiliser les entreprises qui tirent parti de ces technologies. La loi garantirait une gouvernance et un contrôle appropriés des systèmes d’IA afin de prévenir les dommages physiques ou psychologiques ou les pertes économiques infligés aux individus.

On veut aussi prévenir les résultats faussés qui établissent une distinction négative non justifiée sur un ou plusieurs des motifs de discrimination interdits par les législations sur les droits de la personne. Les utilisateurs des technologies d’IA seraient tenus à des obligations d’évaluation et d’atténuation des risques inhérents à leurs systèmes. Le projet de loi entend mettre en place des obligations de transparence pour les systèmes ayant un potentiel de conséquences importantes sur les personnes. Ceux qui rendent disponibles des systèmes d’IA seraient obligés de publier des explications claires sur leurs conditions de fonctionnement de même que sur les décisions, recommandations ou prédictions qu’ils font.

Le traitement discriminatoire que subissent plusieurs étudiants originaires de pays africains francophones illustre les biais systémiques qui doivent être repérés, analysés et supprimés. C’est un rappel que le déploiement de technologies d’IA s’accompagne d’importants risques de reconduire les tendances problématiques des processus de décision. Pour faire face à de tels risques, il faut des législations imposant aussi bien aux entreprises qu’aux autorités publiques de fortes exigences de transparence et de reddition de comptes. Il faut surtout se défaire du mythe de la prétendue « neutralité » de ces outils techniques.

Source: Intelligence artificielle discriminatoire

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International students waiting for visas from Ottawa at risk of missing start of classes

2022/08/27 Leave a comment

An unfortunate additional example at IRCC. Given this and other examples, perhaps time for the government to scale back to program capacity, rather than failing to meet service standards and expectations:

Delays in processing student visas have put a large number of international students at risk of missing the start of fall classes this year, as the federal Immigration Department struggles to keep up with what it describes as a surge in applications.

The issue has sparked a complaint from the Indian High Commission in Ottawa, which said in a statement that it has received a number of petitions from Indian students frustrated with lengthy wait times for visa processing.

India is Canada’s largest source country for international postsecondary students. Students from outside Canada pay tuition fees that are often more than two or three times higher than those paid by domestic students, and that money has become a crucial source of funding to universities and colleges across the country.

According to the Immigration Department, the number of student visa applications is growing. Canada received more than 123,000 applications for student visas from India in the first five months of this year, an increase of 55 per cent over 2019, according to Aidan Strickland, a spokesperson for Immigration Minister Sean Fraser. So far this year, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) has processed more than 360,000 student visas, a 17-per-cent increase over the same period in 2021.

Students apply for the study permits only after they have been accepted to Canadian universities. Until their visa applications are processed they aren’t allowed to enter Canada to study – and that is true even if they have already paid tuition, or taken out student loans.

Ms. Strickland added in a statement that IRCC is still struggling with the continuing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on its operations around the world. She said the government is prioritizing applications from students aiming to begin their studies in September, but that not all applications will be processed in time for fall 2022.

“IRCC has seen an unprecedented volume of applications received for both initial study permits and extensions in 2022, not just from citizens of India but on a global scale,” Ms. Strickland said.

The number of students affected is not clear, but Canada’s diplomatic mission in India said in a tweet last week that a “large number” had experienced long wait times or not received visa decisions.

Federal data show that, as of the end of July, 34 per cent of pending international student visa applications were taking longer to process than government standards dictate.

Indian students contribute more than $4-billion in tuition fees to Canada’s postsecondary system, according to the statement from the Indian High Commission. More than 230,000 Indian students are enrolled at Canadian schools, the statement said.

At the University of Toronto, the number of students contacting registrars with study permit concerns is higher than usual, the university said in a statement. The university said it has been in constant contact with IRCC, and with the Minister’s office directly, to advocate for timely processing of study permit applications and to explain the impact of the delays on students. The statement added that any students unable to enter the country because of the delays can seek deferrals if they are eligible.

Gautham Kolluri, an international-student recruiter and immigration consultant based in Waterloo, Ont., said the number of students affected is likely in the thousands.

He said these are students who have accepted places offered to them at Canadian universities or colleges and expected to have their student visas approved in a matter of weeks. Instead, the process is taking months.

One client of his waited six months to get a study permit, he said.

Mr. Kolluri said he is advising some clients that they are unlikely to receive approval from IRCC before classes begin. At this point, he said, he’s recommending they defer until the next available intake, which can mean a delay until January, or in some cases until next September.

“They’re devastated. For them it’s their studies, but also their future career and opportunities in Canada that are affected,” Mr. Kolluri said. “We are losing these kind of good students who could make a contribution to Canada.”

Most students in India take out education loans in their home countries before coming to Canada. Mr. Kolluri said the interest on those loans starts accumulating even if the students haven’t been able to begin their studies, adding to the pressure they feel if there are problems with their study permits.

Before the pandemic, he said, visa approvals often came through in two to three weeks, and in some cases as quickly as 48 hours. Now, IRCC’s website says it takes up to 12 weeks on average for a study permit application from India to be approved. The target is eight weeks, according to the department.

Ms. Strickland said Mr. Fraser has announced that he expects to hire an additional 1,250 officers by the end of fall to tackle application backlogs and processing delays, paid in part with $85-million in additional funds directed to the department in the government’s 2021 fiscal update.

Source: International students waiting for visas from Ottawa at risk of missing start of classes

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The US has an instability problem and it’s affecting HE

2022/08/15 Leave a comment

Of note. The extent to which this will influence decisions remains to be seen:

At the Association of International Educators (NAFSA) conference in Denver this year, there was much discussion about global instability and what this means for international higher education.

Clearly, geopolitical tensions, the diminished but by no means ended implications of COVID-19, the climate crisis and, most recently, global inflation and likely economic challenges to follow all weigh heavily on student and scholar mobility and on broader aspects of internationalisation.

But one aspect that did not seem to get much attention from the largely US audience was the key challenge of the instability of the United States in a more diverse and competitive global higher education environment.

The fact is that the United States is seen by many around the world as a significantly unstable society with an uncertain future. This perception, based largely on reality, has, and will continue to have, implications for US higher education attractiveness and relations with the rest of the world.

It is worth examining the nature and possible implications of this instability. The argument here is not that US higher education is collapsing, or that the United States will not continue to attract the world’s largest international student population in absolute numbers, or that it will not continue to be an attractive environment for postdocs or international faculty; rather, that there are, and will be, significant headwinds and a decreasing relevance and market share.

It is worth examining the largely ignored but serious challenges that are increasingly evident to students and academics outside the United States.

The past and, perhaps, future of Trumpism

The direct impact of the Trump administration and the ideas and practices that underlie it have been influential and are, by now, part of the way that US higher education and society are perceived around the world.

The overall nationalistic and populist ideology that characterised the Trump years, and continues to have a significant influence on a large segment of the American population, in particular the Republican Party, also plays a role. Many around the world – and in the United States – are concerned about a second Trump presidential term or of someone like him.

The recent highly conservative decisions of the Supreme Court, outlawing abortion and expanding the use of guns, and the controversy surrounding these decisions, have also received much negative coverage outside the United States.

All of these trends are especially evident in ‘red’ (conservative) states, and universities in those states may be negatively affected. It is in those states that the public higher education sector is already facing severe budget cuts and lower local and international student numbers and that the private, not-for-profit higher education sector is less known for its international reputation and quality than in the ‘blue’ (Democratic) states.

Is the United States safe?

Mass shootings (some 300 so far in 2022), other gun violence and steady media reports of crime are on the minds of students and families as they think about a choice of where to study.

It becomes particularly relevant when international students fall victim to gun violence, such as the random shooting of a Chinese student near the campus of the University of Chicago, in broad daylight, in November 2021.

The Supreme Court decision versus New York State on the carrying of weapons also strengthens a negative image that students are not safe, even in states and cities that are popular among international students.

Racism

The tide of racial tensions and incidents of racial hate, stimulated in part by Trumpism, cause potential international students and staff to question whether they will be welcome in the United States.

Violence against blacks and Asians including, but by no means limited to, the senseless shooting of six Asian women in Atlanta, is widely reported – and of special relevance to the preponderance of students coming from east Asia, still the largest region in sending students and academics to the country.

The politicisation of higher education

This theme will affect graduate students, postdocs and prospective international faculty hires rather than undergraduates.

A steady stream of stories about state government interference in university affairs, including forbidding teaching about Critical Race Theory in a number of ‘red’ states, debates about ‘wokeism’ and ‘cancel culture’ and other political issues may deter some graduate students and professionals, in particular those who want to escape from authoritarian regimes and a lack of academic freedom in their own countries (for instance, Russian students and faculty after the invasion of Ukraine and related academic restrictions in Russia).

The ‘China Problem’

Because half of international undergraduate students – and an even larger percentage of graduate students – come from China, and US-China academic and research relations are so important, it is also relevant to focus on China in this article.

Chinese students have long seen the United States as a primary study destination. Their overall enrolment climbed fivefold between 2000 and 2001 and 2020-21.

However, geopolitical tensions between the United States and China in recent years, during which Chinese students and researchers have repeatedly been used as ‘political pawns’, have turned the United States into an unwelcoming study and work destination.

The surge of anti-Asian hatred toward the Asian American and Pacific Islanders, or AAPI, communities, as well as rampant gun violence, have furthered the concerns of Chinese families. The 15% drop in Chinese student enrolment during the pandemic was a clear signal that interest in the United States among Chinese students had significantly declined.

The perception of Chinese students that they are viewed simply as ‘cash cows’ does not help US higher education institutions to create an inclusive environment.

On the one hand, Chinese families still see the United States as a sought-after destination for their children’s college education; on the other, they are increasingly wary about sending their children to a country where they may be in harm’s way.

A direct result of this dilemma is the recent trend of Chinese students applying to colleges in multiple countries instead of primarily the United States. This directly threatens the future mobility of Chinese students to US colleges, potentially weakening the strength of innovation and global competitiveness of US higher education.

Other concerns

Difficulties obtaining visas (of course, greatly exacerbated by the COVID-19 crisis) also enter into the thinking of potential students and scholars. Recent research notes that the United States is among the main receiving countries with the longest delays in issuing visas for international students and researchers.

The high inflation in the United States is also not helping. High tuition fees were already a barrier, but increasing costs of living will become even more of a challenge for international students. And, while Europe, China and Russia are looking at Africa as a new source of international students and faculty, the United States is rather absent in that region.

Looming realities

Of course, several of the challenges and concerns mentioned here (racism, rising costs, geopolitical tensions with China and politicisation) also apply to other leading countries, in particular the United Kingdom and Australia, but that is not an excuse for the United States to ignore these challenges.

It will remain the country with the largest number of highly ranked universities, an overall effective higher education system serving many different constituencies and a sophisticated, productive and reasonably well-funded research system.

But the instability and challenges discussed above are accelerating the United States’ decline as the undisputed global academic leader. The consistently ‘upbeat’ views of the Institute of International Education and others do not reflect looming realities.

Philip G Altbach is research professor and distinguished fellow, Center for International Higher Education, Boston College. Hans de Wit is professor emeritus and distinguished fellow at the same institution. Xiaofeng Wan is associate dean of admission and coordinator of international recruitment, Amherst College.

Source: The US has an instability problem and it’s affecting HE

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CILA: Expansion Of Post Graduate Work Permits for Career Colleges Not Needed

2022/08/09 Leave a comment

Agree. The sector and policies are in need of a fundamental rethink and questioning, rather than the “addiction” to the money it brings. Adding private vocational colleges is just a back-door immigration program.

CILA is one of the rare organizations that questions the current approach to international students and immigration, and raises some of the trade-offs involved between programs and applicants:

Current immigration policy and regulations allow foreign students who graduate from Canadian universities and publicly funded colleges to obtain a Post Graduate Work Permit (PGWP) upon graduation. The PGWP is pushing the boundaries of immigration even during the COVID-19 pandemic. From January to November 2021, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) issued more than 126,000 PGWPs (Government of Canada). The National Association of Career Colleges (NACC), whose members run private vocational colleges, is now putting pressure on IRCC to extend the availability of PGWP to their diploma and certificate graduates.

This expansion would raise significant concerns, due to the level of education of the graduates and it would mean exponential growth in the number of PGWPs issued annually. NACC member colleges offer courses as short as six months in anything ranging from liberal arts to public relations management. This expansion would attract a huge number of foreign students to those colleges, looking to learn something that is not challenging so they can find an entry level position and obtain permanent residence. Unlike university graduates, their goal would not be to start a career, but rather find a quick and easy way to obtain residency. Foreign students would pay a hefty price for their dream of residency.

Foreign students are often “steered” by unscrupulous agents and unlicensed consultants who receive a commission from educational institutions and misrepresent the feasibility of obtaining residency. When foreign students become aware that they are not eligible for PGWP, the agents often blame the career colleges, or a change in government policy, and let them deal with the fallout.

Even publicly funded colleges and universities pay millions of dollars in commissions to agents overseas with a flat fee per student or based on first year tuition fees. (CBC News, April 2019). “College fairs” are advertised in every country to attract foreign students. This has led close to 600,000 foreign students coming to Canada annually (Canadian Bureau for International Education,2021). This number is already too high in many study disciplines, eliminating the need for advertising or recruitment agents. The best recruiting tools are the quality of education imparted, and word of mouth from graduates who enjoyed a positive educational experience.

Even if career college students are genuinely looking to learn practical courses, this raises the question of whether the labour market can absorb them. The labour market is in short supply of skilled trades in manufacturing, construction, engineering and other professions and trades, as the older cohort of Canadian workers are retiring. Employers trying to recruit skilled workers are often faced with the difficulties posed by a tight labour market, while at the same time, receiving hundreds of resumes from unqualified individuals. There is a disconnect between the labour market and the availability of workers in many positions.

Colleges and universities have become too dependent on foreign student tuition fees, which are often triple those of Canadian residents. Also, the large influx of foreign students from countries where English or French are not the languages of instruction, may have caused admission standards to be lowered and many courses to require less stringent writing ability. While foreign students may have taken the International English Language Test (IELTS) or the Test d’Évaluation de Français (TEF), many still lack the necessary language skills to function at a university level.

IRCC should prioritize foreign students pursuing studies in science, technology, engineering and mathematics and computer science (STEM) disciplines or apprenticeships in trades, instead of those studying business, humanities, health, arts, social science, education (BHASE) who may not have good employment prospects. There should be a discussion about the economic cost and benefit of the foreign student program,  as Canada is quickly reaching the point in which the number of foreign college student graduates in BHASE vastly outnumbers the number of college graduates in STEM (Statistics Canada, 2021). Authorities should consider whether all foreign students should obtain residency or prioritize only those students involved in STEM disciplines. Any extension of the PGWP to career college graduates would be detrimental to the overall program.

The numbers cannot continue to increase because they are crowding out other immigration streams and competing for processing resources. Consider the fate of the Express Entry Foreign Skilled Worker Program (“FSWP”) permanent resident stream, suspended since December 2020, at a time when foreign workers with experience are needed by many employers, rather than entry-level workers.  Impeding the permanent resident processing of federal skilled workers from overseas is ill-advised and penalizes some of the best and brightest foreign workers who have excellent educational credentials and worldwide experience.

Source: Expansion Of Post Graduate Work Permits for Career Colleges Not Needed

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Expert opinion mixed on changes to N.S. student immigration program

2022/06/20 Leave a comment

One small point in this article struck me: “He says familiarity with the local economy allows greater success opening businesses such as restaurants and grocers stores.”

Highlights that for some, study is mainly an immigration pathway to relatively lower skilled jobs, rather than building an innovation economy:

Immigration experts in Nova Scotia have mixed views about how changes to a fast-track program for international students will affect over-all immigration.

Last week, the province disqualified students who studied outside the province from applying to the Nova Scotia Experience: Express Entry (NSEEE) immigration stream.

It was a shock to hundreds of foreign students who had already moved to Nova Scotia and worked for months toward the program’s one-year employment target. It offered the chance to apply for permanent residency after 12 months rather than the usual two years.

People have come here on the understanding that this program is available to them,” said Elizabeth Wozniak of North Star Immigration Law in Halifax, “To have that program pulled out from under them midway through doesn’t seem fair at all.”

On Thursday Labour, Skills and Immigration Minister Jill Balser announced a record boost in Nova Scotia’s immigration allocation from the federal government — 400 new spots for the provincial nominee program, and an extra 1,173 spaces under the Atlantic Immigration Program.

Wozniak thinks restricting the NSEEE could make it more challenging to fill those new spots.

Still a draw for students

“The changes to this program … really are going to make it the least attractive of the immigration programs, whereas in the past it was one of the ones that was the most popular,” she said.

But an immigration lawyer in Bridgewater believes Nova Scotia officials will still be able to fill the province’s expanded allocation.

“I don’t recall them ever falling below their quotas or allocations, so I expect that they will meet that,” said David Nurse of McInnes Cooper.

Nurse says the top tiers of Canadian student immigrants are graduating with master’s and PhD degrees, and usually find work right away in their chosen fields.

He says students in Nova Scotia’s immigration streams play an important role in local labour markets while upgrading their language and employment skills.

“They are adding to the labour market. They’re contributing here in Nova Scotia,” he said.

Support from a former student worker

Samual Shaji came to Nova Scotia from southern India to study.

He graduated from Cape Breton University in 2020 with a degree in environmental science.

Then he secured a job managing a McDonald’s restaurant in Bedford, and was able to apply for permanent residency after 12-months thanks to the NSEEE.

But Shaji says many international students in Nova Scotia aren’t so fortunate.

He says it’s difficult to get restaurant jobs in smaller communities such as Sydney and Antigonish, and that lack of experience means students from elsewhere often get hired first after graduation.

“There is a McDonalds and a Tim Horton’s in every street in Toronto or Edmonton, so they have more experience in that job,” Shaji said, “Employers tend to hire them.”

‘They know the market of Nova Scotia’

“A lot of international students are moving from county to county because they cannot get into any job that will help them in immigration,” he said.

While Shaji sympathizes with the struggle of all international students in Canada, he thinks focusing the fast track on Nova Scotia students will lead to more graduates sticking around.

He says familiarity with the local economy allows greater success opening businesses such as restaurants and grocers stores.

Source: Expert opinion mixed on changes to N.S. student immigration program

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The UK has a new open-door immigration policy – as long as you went to Harvard

2022/06/09 Leave a comment

Sharp and witty critique (and it is a lazy policy approach by the UK government):

Ever hoped that one day a government body would develop a way for you to measure your self-worth and quantify your potential once and for all? Well, you’re in luck!

The UK recently launched a “High Potential Individual” (HPI) visa aimed at attracting the “brightest and best” from around the world to its soggy shores. If you qualify under the scheme you are welcomed into the country for at least two years, even if you don’t have a job offer.

So who counts as the brightest and best? According to the British government, an HPI is someone who has graduated from a top-50 ranked university outside of the UK in the past five years. You can see the list of the 37 eligible universities here. Twenty-four of the universities listed are in North America, and include institutions like Yale, Harvard, and MIT. None of the eligible universities are in Africa, India, or Latin America. It seems there are officially no bright people in any of those places, then!

Source: The UK has a new open-door immigration policy – as long as you went to Harvard

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Quebec closes immigration pathway offered by unsubsidized private colleges

2022/06/09 Leave a comment

Overdue. Federal government should consider same given similar abuse occurring elsewhere in Canada:

Quebec is planning to close a pathway to immigration available to international students who attend unsubsidized private colleges.

The new rules, announced Tuesday by the provincial government in collaboration with Ottawa, will go into effect for those enrolling after September 2023. 

Only those who have completed a study program in a public or subsidized private college will be able to get a work permit. 

The possibility of a work permit was a major selling point for unsubsidized colleges, which charge as much as $25,000 annually in tuition. 

In Quebec, the number of students from India in particular has skyrocketed, from 2,686 in 2017-2018 to 14,712 two years later. Most of them attend private, non-subsidized colleges.

https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/Xii2p/1/

Reporting by CBC News has shed light on poor management at some of the colleges. In the case of three colleges that suddenly shut down last year, many students have still not had their tuition reimbursed and others were left in legal limbo.

A 2021 report by Quebec’s Ministry of Higher Education revealed shortcomings around recruitment, commercial practices, governance and teaching conditions at 10 private colleges.

Changes meant to address ‘integrity issues’

Quebec Labour Minister Jean Boulet and Ottawa Immigration Minister Sean Fraser said in a joint statement the change aimed to “address gaps brought to light” by the investigation regarding “certain unsubsidized private colleges.”

According to the statement, it will “ensure that Quebec is not used as a gateway for settling permanently in Canada. In the other provinces, international students who have followed an unsubsidized program of study generally do not have access to this work permit.”

In an interview, Boulet said there were issues with the “integrity” of the system.

“We will harmonize with what is done everywhere else in Canada,” he said. 

“Unsubsidized private schools used this post-graduation work permit to recruit [and] attract people who benefited from our school system, then went elsewhere in Canada,” he said.

He added that “international students are a tremendous assets socially, culturally and economically for Quebec society as a whole.”

‘We did nothing wrong,’ college head says

Private colleges were quick to denounce the decision. The National Association of Career Colleges issued a statement saying it was disappointed by the decision, arguing such colleges play an important role in the province and the country as a whole.

“Our industry has, for many months, tried to engage the Quebec government to understand their questions or concerns pertaining to the post-graduate work permit and find workable solutions together,” said Michael Sangster, the CEO of the association.

Michael McAllister, director general of Herzing College in Montreal, said his institution, which was founded in 1968, is among those being punished for the problems at a select number of colleges. 

“We did nothing wrong and we’re getting penalized,” he said. McAllister would have liked to work with the provincial government to come up with a plan that helps meet the province’s labour shortage and recruit more international students who speak French.

Harleen Kaur, who is originally from India, has been advocating on behalf of students and said she feels international students are also being blamed for the poorly run colleges. 

She said the province could have instead made sure colleges are better regulated instead.

“I think the government needs to communicate with the colleges and look deeper into this,” she said.

The change comes more than a year after the release of the province’s report on the private colleges and only days before the National Assembly session wraps up for the summer ahead of the Oct. 3 election.  

Martin Maltais, an expert in higher education policy and a professor at Université du Québec à Rimouski, said the move was a simpler, quicker way to address the problems with unsubsidized private colleges, in lieu of more complicated legislative reforms.

“That’s probably the fastest way to act and and have results,” he said. 

Source: Quebec closes immigration pathway offered by unsubsidized private colleges

And in Le Devoir, with more emphasis on the hardship of students:

Plus de 500 étudiants originaires de l’Inde, qui ont payé jusqu’à 15 000 $ pour faire des études au Québec, affirment avoir été floués à cause de la « négligence » des gouvernements du Québec et du Canada. Ayant épuisé leurs recours juridiques et politiques, leurs avocats tentent désormais d’alerter l’opinion publique sur cette situation qu’ils estiment révoltante.

Ces 502 jeunes Indiens regrettent amèrement d’avoir fait confiance aux publicités décrivant le Canada comme un paradis pour les étudiants étrangers. Ils ont payé à l’avance leur première année de scolarisation au Québec, comme l’exige Ottawa — même si cela contrevient à la Loi québécoise sur l’enseignement privé —, mais le gouvernement fédéral a refusé de leur accorder un permis d’études.

Pour comble d’insulte, il leur est impossible d’obtenir un remboursement : trois collèges privés où ils s’étaient inscrits n’ont plus aucune liquidité et se sont placés sous la protection de la Loi sur les arrangements avec les créanciers des compagnies.

« Immigration Canada a détruit mon avenir. Je me demande pourquoi j’ai choisi le Canada pour faire mes études », dit en soupirant Nisha Jindal, une étudiante de 28 ans qui s’était inscrite en éducation à la petite enfance au Collège M, ayant pignon sur rue à Montréal.

Elle a accordé une entrevue au Devoir depuis la ville de Badhni Kalan, au Pendjab, dans le nord de l’Inde. Cette dynamique jeune femme affirme que son rêve d’étudier et de s’établir au Québec a viré au cauchemar dans des circonstances obscures.

En novembre 2020, Nisha Jindal a commencé ses études en ligne après avoir payé à l’avance la somme de 14 852 $. Il s’agit d’une facture considérable pour une famille indienne : son frère a réhypothéqué l’appartement familial pour permettre à la jeune femme de venir étudier à Montréal.

Dix mois plus tard, en août 2021, un gros nuage a assombri l’avenir de Mme Jindal : Immigration, Réfugiés et Citoyenneté Canada a refusé de lui accorder le visa qui devait lui permettre de venir faire à Montréal son stage d’éducatrice à la petite enfance.

Raison invoquée : son parcours scolaire en Inde ne lui permettrait pas de mener des études collégiales au Québec. En vertu d’un système mis en place par le Canada en raison de la pandémie, la jeune femme avait pourtant eu l’autorisation de commencer ses études à distance — ce qu’elle a fait avec assiduité, tous les jours de 15 h à 2 h, à cause du décalage horaire entre l’Inde et Montréal. Elle avait aussi obtenu son certificat d’acceptation du Québec.

« J’ai accepté de payer à l’avance ma scolarité parce que je faisais confiance aux gouvernements du Québec et du Canada. Je le regrette tellement ! Tout le monde nous a abandonnés », laisse tomber Nisha Jindal. Elle reproche à Québec de l’avoir mise en lien avec un établissement qui n’a pas livré les services pour lesquels elle avait payé.

Elle et 501 autres étudiants ne peuvent ni terminer leurs études ni se faire rembourser les milliers de dollars payés à l’avance. L’entreprise Rising Phoenix International, qui possède le Collège M, le Collège de l’Estrie et le Collège de comptabilité et de secrétariat du Québec, à Longueuil et à Sherbrooke, s’est placée sous la protection de la Loi sur les arrangements avec les créanciers des compagnies.

Les dirigeants de Rising Phoenix font face à des accusations de fraude et d’abus de confiance en lien avec le recrutement d’étudiants étrangers.

Une entreprise de Toronto, Cestar, a offert de racheter les collèges de Rising Phoenix, non sans controverse. Selon nos sources, une décision du ministère de l’Enseignement supérieur du Québec est attendue d’ici la fin du mois de juin.

Alain N. Tardif, avocat chez McCarthy Tétrault, estime que cette histoire entache la réputation du Canada dans le monde. « Le gouvernement oblige les étudiants étrangers à payer une année de scolarité à l’avance et, quand tout s’écroule, il ne répond pas », dit-il.

La firme d’avocats a eu le mandat de représenter les étudiants indiens touchés par la restructuration de Rising Phoenix International en vertu de la Loi sur les arrangements avec les créanciers. Les avocats ont tenté en vain de forcer Ottawa et Québec à prolonger les visas ou les certificats d’acceptation pour des centaines d’étudiants indiens inscrits dans les collèges de Rising Phoenix. La Cour supérieure du Québec a refusé cette demande.

À défaut d’accorder ou de prolonger les permis d’études, les gouvernements devraient rembourser les étudiants indiens pour des cours qu’ils n’ont pas obtenus, fait valoir Alain N. Tardif. « Pour les étudiants indiens et leurs familles, c’est une tragédie de perdre 15 000 $. Ils vivent beaucoup de détresse », dit-il.

La facture totale réclamée par les 502 étudiants s’élève à 7,5 millions de dollars. Une somme considérable pour les étudiants de l’Inde — où le salaire annuel moyen est estimé à 2434 $ —, mais plutôt anecdotique pour le gouvernement d’un pays riche comme le Canada, fait valoir l’avocat.

Plus de permis de travail postdiplôme

Interrogé sur le sort de ces 500 étudiants laissés à eux-mêmes, Immigration, Réfugiés et Citoyenneté Canada n’a pas répondu aux questions du Devoir. Sans commenter l’octroi des permis d’études, qui est une compétence fédérale, le ministre de l’Immigration, Jean Boulet, a toutefois donné plus de détails sur une nouvelle mesure négociée avec son homologue fédéral, Sean Fraser, qui coupera l’herbe sous le pied aux 49 collèges privés non subventionnés du Québec.

En date du 1er septembre 2023, le permis de travail postdiplôme ne sera désormais octroyé qu’aux étudiants issus des collèges subventionnés. Jusqu’ici, les étudiants de collèges privés non subventionnés avaient droit à ce permis de travail après avoir effectué de très courtes formations d’environ 900 heures, comme des attestations d’études collégiales (AEC) ou des diplômes d’études professionnelles (DEP), pouvant coûter jusqu’à 25 000 $.

Des médias, dont Le Devoir, avaient d’ailleurs révélé les nombreux problèmes liés à la piètre qualité des formations dans ces collèges de même que leurs stratagèmes douteux concernant le recrutement, ce qu’avait confirmé le ministère de l’Enseignement supérieur au terme d’une enquête qui avait mis au ban dix collèges, en majorité anglophones.

En entrevue, le ministre Boulet n’a pas nié l’impact de sa décision sur ces collèges. Mais il estime que « ça s’imposait ». « On ne pouvait pas tolérer ce type de stratagème permettant à une personne d’arriver au Québec et, après une formation de courte durée, d’avoir un accès automatique à un permis de travail », a soutenu le ministre, en soulignant que bon nombre de ces étudiants s’en allaient en Ontario ou ailleurs au Canada. Selon lui, il ne s’agit pas de punir les collèges anglophones. « C’est le stratagème qui est visé. » Il a par ailleurs rappelé que le Québec est la seule province canadienne qui permet l’accès au permis de travail postdiplôme au terme d’un programme non subventionné.

Source: «Tout le monde nous a abandonnés»

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U.K.’s ‘Brightest and Best’ Visa Plan Faces Charges of Elitism

2022/06/04 Leave a comment

The English “public school” insularity! No surprise that Canada’s big three (UBC, McGill Toronto) are on the list:

When Britain started a program this week offering a two-year visa to graduates from some top global universities, Nikhil Mane, an Indian computer science student at New York University, welcomed the news.

“I was happy,” said Mr. Mane, 23, whose university was on the list. “It’s a good way to pursue our dreams.”

More than 5,000 miles away, Adeola Adepoju, 22, a biochemistry student at Olabisi Onabanjo University in Nigeria, also read the announcement with great interest. But he had the opposite reaction.

“I couldn’t believe my eyes,” Mr. Adepoju said. “No university from the third world is ranked.”

Britain’s “High Potential Individual” visa program allows graduates from 37 top-rated world universities in Australia, Canada, China, Europe, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore and the United States to come to the country for two years even if they do not have a job offer.

A majority of universities on the list are in the United States, including Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of California, San Diego.

The government said the plan would attract the world’s “brightest and best” and benefit the British economy. Critics, however, say the plan nurtures global inequalities and discriminates against most developing countries.

The purpose of the policy is to create “a highly desirable and able pool of mobile talent from which U.K. employers can recruit” and drive economic growth and technological advances, the government said in its announcement. It did not put a cap on the number of applicants who would be accepted, and said that graduates with Ph.D.s would be allowed to stay for three years.

“We want the businesses of tomorrow to be built here today,” Rishi Sunak, the British chancellor of the Exchequer, said in a statement. “Come and join in!”

The program is in line with Britain’s post-Brexit visa policy, which has made entry easier for high-skilled workers and harder for those considered low-skilled ones, as well as asylum seekers. Visa pathways include a skilled worker visa for people who have received a job offer in Britain, a visa for people considered a “leader or potential leader” in certain fields, and a program to allow international students who graduated from British universities to stay for at least two years.

Mr. Mane, the New York University student, said that after he graduates with a master’s degree, he will be allowed to stay in the United States for three years. After that, his prospects of getting another visa are uncertain.

The opportunity to go to Britain “opens more options,” he said.

The new British visa has been praised in some academic circles in the United States as one to emulate. But many academics, students and politicians in Britain, Africa and India have spoken out against it, saying that the universities that students attend are largely influenced by their social and geographical circumstances, and that the new scheme rewards those who are already more privileged.

“I would not be eligible,” said Deepti Gurdasani, a clinical epidemiologist and a senior lecturer in machine learning at Queen Mary University of London, who went to a university in India that is not on the list. “It is very hurtful to find that you’re devalued and that people within your community are devalued because of arbitrary thresholds.”

Dr. Gurdasani said that as a student, she got one of seven spots to study medicine at Christian Medical College in Vellore, India, for which thousands of students competed. There, she received what she said was rigorous training, seeing patients with very complex illnesses, including infectious diseases, and building expertise that she then brought to Britain.

“We’ve seen the lack of this in the U.K. during the Covid pandemic,” she said, “It’s very, very shocking to see that after that we are seeing the same sort of names, the same universities pop up, which will favor obviously a particular kind of privileged white person.”

Madeleine Sumption, the director of the University of Oxford’s Migration Observatory, which tracks immigration patterns, said the new policy was an innovative idea, but with drawbacks.

“How do you decide who the highly skilled people are?” she asked, adding that the current policy would admit someone who just scraped through Harvard but not the highest achieving students at a top Indian university.

Introducing other criteria for assessing applicants, such as grades, would be fair, she said, but much harder to enforce. “It’s very convenient for the government to just have an institution be on the list or not.”

Britain’s Home Office said the list had been compiled from leading global university ranking lists, and that new international institutions could move up the ranks and later join the list.

However, university rankings are widely criticized in many quarters, with critics saying they often fail to grasp the quality of teaching and often overemphasize research over instruction.

Phil Baty, who is responsible for developing the methodology of the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, which is among those the British government used, said in a post on LinkedIn that “this isn’t what we had in mind when creating the rankings.”

Zubaida Haque, the executive director of Equality Trust, a British charity, said that in offering the new visa, the British government failed to grasp that race, class and financial barriers prevented many deserving students from reaching top universities.

A 2017 study of Ivy League colleges, as well as institutions like the University of Chicago, Stanford, MIT and Duke, most of which are on the British visa list, showed that more students came from families in the top 1 percent of income distribution in the United States than the bottom half.

“This scheme shows that the government does not understand the systemic racial and class inequality in this country and they clearly do not understand it anywhere else,” Ms. Haque said. “It’s an elitist visa scheme.”

She added that the program gave an unfair advantage to those who needed it the least. “There is likely to be a good pipeline for these graduates anyway,” she said.

Christopher Trisos, a senior researcher at the African Climate and Development Initiative at the University of Cape Town, said that the program was also detrimental to Britain itself.

“If U.K. businesses and governments want to play a role in addressing the biggest challenges of this century — energy access, fighting climate change and pandemics — they need to be including skills and knowledge from developing countries,” he said.

Mr. Adepoju, the student from Nigeria, said he hoped to become a researcher in molecular oncology.

“I might not get a degree in the 50 top universities but I have high potential and I want to achieve great things,” he said. But, he added, “It’s their loss, not mine.”

Source: U.K.’s ‘Brightest and Best’ Visa Plan Faces Charges of Elitism

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