Canada’s exploitation of Punjabi international students is history repeating itself

2022/06/03 Leave a comment

Governments should crack down on private college student international student recruitment given a number of articles and investigations highlighting the exploitation and abuse, and the minimum benefit to the economy and society:

Canada has a decades-old tradition of exploiting Punjab’s working class. The latest example of this comes by way of international students.

Canadian schools, partnering with a shady recruitment industry, allure youth from working-class farming families. Demand has been cultivated by urban centres and television littered with advertisements to go abroad via a study visa.

As a community volunteer, I have seen the result of such perverse marketing where many come to Canada with no understanding of what awaits and hope it will work out. Sadly, many face grave hardships and encounter shameless people aiming to exploit their vulnerability.

The problems include an unscrupulous and untrustworthy private college industry swindling foreign students across Canada. Rampant labour exploitation of international students. Sex traffickers preying on female international students aware they are financially vulnerable. A concerning number of international student suicides with deaths occurring monthly. Finally, a Statistics Canada studyfound international student graduates have relatively worse economic outcomes.

While volunteers try to help as much as possible, we cannot match the volume of students being churned through the system.

We receive messages from students stating they don’t want to live anymore, and while we feel compelled to take action, it is discouraging that politicians feel no such obligation.

In fact, politicians like MP Sukh Dhaliwal and minister Marco Mendicino do not seem to think anything is wrong with the international student program.

Politicians do not feel compelled to fix this mess because international education is very lucrative. International students are charged nearly five times higher tuition, bring in over $20 billion, and have allowed provincial governments to decreasetheir proportion of higher education funding.

In one honest conversation, an elected official acknowledged to me the unwillingness to fix this problem is because the economy and many jobs are dependent on the status quo.

What does this say about those in power? I interpret inaction to mean that in order to generate wealth for Canada, politicians tacitly accept migrant suicides and Punjabi migrant women being trafficked.

Adding to my frustration is this exploitation follows a similar pattern from over a century ago.

After British colonization of Punjab in 1858, Punjab’s fertile lands were used to produce cash crops for export. In the succeeding decades, British management of agriculture to increase production also led to land values, prices of basic goods, and taxes all increasing. It also resulted in repeated famines and many modest Punjabi farmers accumulating debt.

For many struggling farmers emigration was the best option to improve economic fortunes.

At the same time, newspapers were filled with job ads from Canadian companies and labour contractors who were recruiting in Punjab.

In the 1900s Punjabi migrant workers started arriving in Canada and would experience significant hardships. They were paid less for equal work and often victims of abuse and discrimination. This easy to exploit labour was lucrative for the lumber industry.

Fast forward to the 1960s green revolution, which was initiated to boost global agricultural production. Decades later, many found the green revolution benefitted multinational corporations pushing chemical pesticides more than farmers in places like Punjab.

In Punjab, long-term pesticide use has led to environmental degradation resulting in stagnating agricultural production. This disproportionately affects modest farmers who are accumulating debt to stay afloat. For these struggling families emigration is the best option to improve economic fortunes, and a student visa is the best path to emigrate.

Sadly, like their predecessors, this generation of Punjabi migrants also face serious hardships and exploitation in Canada.

Throughout the last century Punjabi Canadians have mobilized and began a tradition of activism. Prominent fights include advocating for equal pay in the 1940s and farm workers advocating for better work conditions in the 1980s. And today, community advocates and students are fighting against the economic exploitation of international students.

Ironically, Canadian politicians will celebrate Punjabi migrants who struggled for equality and dignity in the past, but neglect the indignity Punjabi migrants experience today.

Municipal, provincial, and federal politicians showed concern for farmers during India’s farmer protest, but they have no concern for the children of these farmers suffering in Canada.

It seems that in politics the profits made off the vulnerable count, while the pain experienced by them does not.

Balraj S. Kahlon is a member of One Voice Canada and the author of The Realities of International Students: Evidenced Challenges.

Source: Canada’s exploitation of Punjabi international students is history repeating itself

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , , , ,

The Reckoning: International Student Enrolment

2022/05/10 Leave a comment

Another possible indicator that housing may prove to be the canary in the coal mine with respect to current high levels of immigration, with Alex Usher’s take on international students:

I am calling it now: Canadian post-secondary institutions are very close to the end of the road on international student number growth.  It’s not because demand is going to dry up or anything like that.  There is still room for hundreds of thousands more international students if we wanted them, and probably demand to match as well.  It is simply that too many institutions have become too greedy, and they are imposing intolerable externalities on their surrounding communities.  A backlash is building.

I want to be clear about what’s not going to drive the backlash.  First, it’s not going to be about foreign students “taking spots from deserving Canadian students”.  This is a talking point in some places, but there are no post-secondary institutes and only a very few faculties nationally where one can genuinely point to domestic student numbers falling for any reasons other than demographics.  The spaces being taken up by international students are all spaces that exist only because international students are there, paying full freight for them.  The counter-factual to spots taken up by international students is – given current government funding practices – no spots at all, not spots taken up by domestic students.

Nor is it going to be from all those recent stories in outlets like The Walrus, the Toronto Star, the Globe and Mail etc.  about the exploitation faced by international students in the local labour market, about the incredible hardship many endure since tuition fees here are sometimes many times their parents annual income back in their home country (which, in these stories, is usually India, most often Punjab).  Clearly, we all decided in that very passive-aggressive Canadian way of ours – which is to say, we never had a discussion and agreed to a thing, we all went around self-interestedly and created a situation, then called it a consensus – that we were OK with creating a new class of immigrants who could evade the whole points-based immigration system simply by coming to Canada, paying some money to support our post-secondary system and gutting it out in low-wage jobs for a few years.   Exploitation?  Maybe.  But many ethnic groups who have immigrated to Canada over the past 150-odd years followed similar, gruelling, dues-paying periods in their history, so not many people are too fussed about it.  

No, the blowback is going to be about housing, and the way that some institutions have been packing in students without regard to local housing supply, which contributes to the steep rise in housing costs not just for international students but for all renters and first-time home buyers.  I discussed this a few weeks ago in the context of some new reports from my colleague Mike Moffatt at the Institute for Smart Prosperity: we are letting in hundreds of thousands of students, and not building any new housing.  Combined with a variety of other factors that are taking low-income housing off the market, it does not take a degree in economics to realize that there will be a shortage of spaces for anyone looking for low-rent housing.  This is, in effect, an externality that institutions are imposing on their neighbours: universities and colleges gain from tuitions, while local tenants are effectively paying a tax through higher housing costs.  

I suppose one could argue that the pros of having a thriving post-secondary institution in the neighbourhood outweighs the cons of these kinds of externalities, and on aggregate that’s true.  But rents aren’t paid on aggregate: they are paid by a very specific sector of the population – one which has a large overlap with the most vulnerable sector.  It is becoming an issue that politicians are hearing on doorsteps when they talk to voters.  In some communities, politicians are starting to relay those concerns to university and college leaders.  

Now, you might ask why opprobrium would rain on universities and colleges when they are far from the only culprits here. Long-term NIMBY-ism run amok leading to a catastrophic failure to build, the financialization of the housing market, the accumulated 30-year impact of the federal government leaving the affordable housing market and provinces failing to pick up the baton: there are indeed all sorts of supply-side issues that we can and should worry about at least as much as educational institutions juicing demand.  

But here’s the difference: none of the other players in this field spend their time shouting at the top of their lungs about how much they benefit the community.  And not just in financial terms; institutions are increasingly using communications tools like the UN Sustainable Development Goals to articulate not just how research and its dissemination helps to improve the world, but also how their local community benefits directly through more concrete actions (purchasing) and co-creation of knowledge.  Colleges have always anchored their value-proposition in terms of their value to local communities, but for many universities this is a more recent shift, one accelerated by COVID but in a larger sense driven by the dawning realization that all the money and research invested in higher education (worldwide, not just in Canada) isn’t exactly leading to the paradise of economic prosperity we all thought it would 30 years ago and that alternative ways of explaining value propositions to voters are needed.

This “good neighbour” policy makes eminent sense; it’s also why the international student/rental housing policy nexus is so deadly. Some institutions – and there’s no way to put this politely – are clearly acting as “bad neighbours”.  And once they get that labelled with that tag, it’s going to be hard to shed.  There are, of course, many institutions who are doing their best to get housing efforts started in their communities – though universities in Nova Scotia seem significantly more seized of this issue than those anywhere else – but new housing takes time to come on-stream.  It can take years, decades even, given the inanities of planning and land-use in this country’s big cities.   But those international students are showing up now, and in growing numbers, year after year.   Institutions that continue to pile pressure on local housing markets by adding more students are playing with fire.

So here’s my call: the international student market is not headed for a “bust” of any kind – remember, demand is still strong – but institutions will stop growing if they wish to maintain good community relations.  That’s a big problem, because international student dollars have essentially been the sole source of increased funding in Canadian post-secondary education since about 2015, and I don’t see governments lining up to backfill.  To some extent, institutions can mitigate this by upgrading services and charging higher fees to international students, but increasingly aggressive cost-containment strategies will need to be part of the solution as well.  At some institutions at least, this will come as a shock.

But this is the path we have been on since at least 2008 when provinces stopped increasing funding in real terms, but institutions kept on increasing spending by 2% per year after inflation.  For a long time, we used international students as a get-out-of-jail free card.  No more.  The reckoning is at hand.   

Source: The Reckoning

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , , ,

Working long hours. Earning meagre wages. Fainting from exhaustion. What some international students face in Canada

2022/04/04 Leave a comment

The Globe also did a similar analysis with respect to Brampton (Canada’s international student recruiting machine is broken). More a cheap labour program than an education one.

So much abuse, so little action by governments:

Each year, thousands of international students come to Canada. Despite the fact that many are from modest backgrounds, they pay hefty tuition fees for the chance not just to study in this country but, potentially, to start a life here. Yet the realities of their decision can stand in stark contrast to the dream. They face difficult challenges, unforgiving timelines and social isolation, and are often prone to exploitation by employers and others. In a new series, Hard Lessons, we look at whether Canada is living up to its bargain with these students.

After being let go from her part-time job at Walmart, Satinder Kaur Grewal says she felt lucky to be hired at a local restaurant in June 2020, working as server, cook, cleaner and cashier. She needed money for food and rent, and many other international students had lost their jobs during the pandemic.

The deal, according to a complaint she filed with the Ministry of Labour, was she would be paid $60 a day by the Brampton restaurant regardless of the hours she worked. After six weeks, she got a raise to $80 for a 10-hour day, $100 for 12 hours and $116 for 14 hours, but the hourly rate would still be much lower than the $14 Ontario legal minimum wage.

Grewal said she would start at 9 or 10 a.m. and sometimes worked until midnight, without a day off. Twice, she said, she fainted from exhaustion — once in the washroom and another time, behind the counter — during her six months working there.

“I got home from work and slept on my bed. I did nothing else. Just sleep, shower and work. No cooking. No cleaning. My body was dead. I wasn’t able to do anything else,” said the 22-year-old Brampton woman, who came to Canada in 2018 and graduated from CDI College in December 2020 with a diploma in web design.

“I called my family in India many times. I told them, ‘I can’t survive like this here.’ And my family said this is a stage of life and just to tolerate it a bit longer and the future will be better.”

Sarom Rho of Migrant Students United said international students have become the largest group of temporary migrant workers in Canada, with 778,560 study-permit holders and postgraduate-work permit holders in the country in 2021 alone.

Many of them are stocking shelves in grocery stores, handling packages at warehouses, cleaning offices and buildings, working in food service and making deliveries.

International students pay three, four times more in tuition fees than their domestic peers and contribute $22 billion a year to the Canadian economy. With the tuition fees skyrocketing across Canada, she said Ottawa needs to at least remove the 20-hour work limit for international students, to ease the risk of them being taken advantage of by employers.

“This is a cash grab, where people are called to show up with the promise of permanent residency. And when they come here, they find that it’s a landmine filled with exploitation and abuse and really lack of dignity,” said Rho. “So many workers will say that this has been such a humiliating experience. The way to reclaim that dignity is to come together and organize to fight for the necessary changes to the rules that cause these conditions in the first place.”

When Grewal finally quit her job at Chat Hut on Christmas Day in 2020, she said she would’ve worked a total of 1,844 hours. Based on the legal minimum wage, she should have earned a total of $32,782.82 in regular pay plus overtime, public holiday and vacation pay. However, she only got paid $14,356.40.

The Star reached out to Chat Hut’s owners, who declined to comment on Grewal’s complaint when reached by phone or respond to the Star’s email request about the allegations.

In Chat Hut’s response to the provincial government’s employment standards officer in charge of the case, the employer said Grewal worked 1,704.50 hours for the employer, including 576.75 hours of overtime. 

The restaurant said Grewal “consistently confirmed that she wanted to work the hours she did work” and she was given time off whenever she required a break, according to the labour ministry’s reasons for decision dated Feb. 10, 2022. 

In February, Chat Hut agreed to pay Grewal $16,495.29.

Grewal’s experience might not have come to light if not for an Instagram post she came across last year about the launch of Naujawan Support Network, a support group to help international students and workers facing workplace exploitation.

She reached out to the organizers, who assisted her in trying to recoup her owed wages and filing a complaint against the employer with the Ontario labour ministry. 

Naujawan, a Brampton-based advocacy group, was formed in 2021 initially to support farmers’ protests in India last year, but organizers began to shift its focus after hearing from participating international students and workers about incidents of alleged exploitation by employers right in their own backyard.

“When students and workers know that they need permanent residence, they are at the mercy of their employers. Not only do many not know about their rights, but those rights are often actively denied to them,” said Simran Dhunna, of Naujawan.

“There are obviously a whole range of barriers that are related to not knowing about your rights, about the language and about being new to the country. The biggest, most critical factor that makes international students vulnerable is their immigration status.”

Dhunna said many international students are forced to work for cash only and under minimum wage because of restrictive immigration rules — the rules that stipulate students may work no more than 20 hours off-campus during school and limit access to permanent residence (PR) with stringent criteria and timelines.

“The employer could simply be like, well, ‘You’re working (extra hours) illegally, so if you actually work for $8 an hour, we won’t report you and we’ll give you an employment reference letter for your PR,’” she explained, speaking generally about the concerns she sees.

“So all sorts of rights from the minimum wage, overtime, vacation pay, employment reference letters for PR and just basic respect and dignity are denied to international students because of this.”

Grewal, whose father is a bus driver, said her parents helped cover her tuition — more than $23,000 over two years — but she had to make money for other necessities.

While she expected to work hard in Canada to support herself, she didn’t anticipate it to be this hard.

“When I was in India, when our relatives came to visit from Canada, they are showing their clothes and pictures in their mobile phones of their cars, the fancy restaurants and malls and everything. So we thought like, oh, it’s so easy there,” Grewal said.

“When I came to here and found out my auntie was working as a cleaner at a hotel, I was shocked. I was like ‘you guys showed me all these pictures but you never told me you were a cleaner.’ People back home only see our lifestyle. They don’t see our struggles.”

Grewal said she knew about Ontario’s minimum wage but said she realized the stakes would have been even higher for her if she didn’t have a job, given her precarious status.

“It’s like there’s a noose around our necks, whether we work or whether we don’t work. There’s no financial support,” she said. “I needed money and I didn’t have money to hire a lawyer to help me.”

Naujawan Support Network worked with Grewal and helped her draft a letter to Chat Hut’s owners in November to urge them to return the owed wages in November. Instead, her former employer threatened to take legal action against her, they alleged.

Chat Hut said its lawyer only sent a letter to Naujawan Support Network to ask them to stop “harassing” the owner after they were “vexatiously” calling the restaurant and the owners as well as other employees and people linked to the company.

“None of the employer’s actions form reprisal,” said the ministry’s reason of decision, citing Chat Hut’s position.

“The Company did not intend to intimidate, dismiss or otherwise penalize or threaten to intimidate, dismiss or otherwise penalize the employee. The employer took the claimant’s representative’s actions as harassment and intended for that harassment to stop. However, it was willing to listen to the claimant.”

Despite an order against Chat Hut to pay back Grewal’s owed wages, the ministry sided with the employer in denying the complainant’s claim of reprisal.

Source: Working long hours. Earning meagre wages. Fainting from exhaustion. What some international students face in Canada

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , , , ,

Qadeer: Student immigration visas are a money-making business

2022/04/04 Leave a comment

More and more articles on the questionable practices and policies with respect to international students. Given the public and private interests at play, hard to see any major reform being possible:

Both Canada and the U.S. have a paradoxical history of immigration. They depend on immigrants to people Indigenous lands and fuel economic growth but simultaneously discriminate against new arrivals by treating them as racially and ethnically inferior. Civil rights and human rights movements, as well as economic imperatives, have helped reduce overt discrimination, but treating immigrants unequally always courses just below the surface.

In the 21st century, immigration has been turned into a money-making business in Canada. It has been put on sale, though the rhetoric remains of economic growth and humanitarian interests. The use of immigration as a source of financial gain has permeated into business, the labour force, housing and now education.

Canadian colleges and universities are increasingly dependent on international student fees as a major source of tuition revenue. A Statistic Canada study prior to COVID shows that in 2017-18, almost 24 per cent of new enrolments in universities were by international students. In colleges, it was slightly more than 16 per cent.

In eight years, the enrolment of international students in universities has nearly doubled. At the college level, it’s about tripled. The revenue from international student fees in universities and degree-granting colleges was $12.7 billion in 2019-20. According to Global Affairs Canada, international students spent $22.3 billion in 2018 on tuition, accommodation and discretionary expenditures. China is the leading source of international students in universities while India dominates college enrolees.

In Ontario, with about 280,000 international students, the situation has been alarming enough to come to the notice of the provincial auditor general, whose 2021 audit report observed that Ontario colleges were more and more reliant on tuition revenue from international students – 68 per cent of fee revenue for colleges. Should enrolment drop for any reason, these institutions would be in a precarious position.

The Globe and Mail has published several investigative reportsabout the malpractices and consequences of what it calls the “international student recruiting machine.” An industry of recruiting students abroad has coalesced. It includes immigrant and educational consultants (sometimes working on commission for private colleges), tuition centres to help potential students cram to qualify for the English test and post-secondary admission offices.

The Globe reports that in Indian Punjab, billboards advertise “study in Canada,” and notices are posted on electric poles advertising “settle abroad.” An international student can work for up to 20 hours a week and they can earn even more by working off the books.

This opens the possibility to turn college study into an investment toward the Canadian immigrant visa and a route for earning money. This lure has drawn thousands from Punjab alone. Many families borrow money or sell properties to pursue the dream of riches in Canada.

The prospect of an immigration visa as an incentive to send children to study in Canada has not drawn only the fortune-seekers. It also motivates many well-off families in China, India and other countries to send their youth to Canadian universities and colleges as a way of establishing a foothold in Canada for opportunities, security and freedom.

Undoubtedly, many international students come with genuine educational motives but are being tarred by the practices of those primarily using enrolment as a route to immigration. The associated malfeasance is corrupting the educational system, and is also blighting local housing situations and promoting dubious business practices.

Cutbacks in provincial funding over many years drove universities and colleges to rely on international students’ high fees to fill the financial shortfall. The international students coming to seek employment and settlement in Canada work long hours and have little time, energy and motivation to meet the educational requirements. Though tutored to qualify for the language test, many do not have the proficiency in English or French to keep up with the demands of classwork. The outcome of these conflicting pressures is that the educational standards are being compromised. Occasional letters to the editors, social media postings and teachers privately point out that academic compromises are made in classes, where a large number of students are linguistically and academically unprepared.

The student immigrants are themselves often victims. The City of Brampton in Ontario is a prime exhibit of these complex issues. International students from Punjab converge there because it has a large Punjabi population. Scores of students live together in squalid illegal basements. In 2019, the city registered 1,600 complaints of illegal secondary units. The callers to Punjabi radio programmes often bring up problems of crowded neighbourhoods and the financial ruination of families in villages across Punjab.

International students often find that the well-paying work they were promised by recruiters does not exist. They struggle at schools and are often entreating their not-so-well-off families back home to send them money to live. Businesses come to rely on them as cheap labour. Mental health problems affect many. The Globe quotes the director of the Lotus Funeral Home in Toronto as saying he handles four to five international students’ deaths – suspected to be suicides or overdoses – every month.

The student visa channel and its misuses are widespread. The Indian family that recently froze to death illegally crossing from Manitoba to the U.S. had entered Canada on a student visa. The president of the Indian Association of Manitoba has characterized international student recruitment as full of “rampant fraud and exploitation.” In December 2020, the Quebec government barred 10 private colleges from issuing admission certificates for such visas.

The federal and provincial governments are ignoring the misuse of student visas for immigration. The Ontario government had a cavalier response to the auditor general’s observations, saying, “Ontarians should be proud that local colleges attract students from all over the world.”

Both levels of government need to detach immigration eligibility from enrolment in Canadian colleges and universities. The graduates of these programmes maybe should get extra points for their Canadian education, but they should be put in line with the applicants for immigration from their homelands. Also, the non-educational employment of international students should be more strictly monitored.

Most importantly, these governments should appropriately fund educational institutions, reducing their dependence on international student fees.

A good society in Canada will not be built if those coming to settle here experience it as a land of illegal and immoral practices. Canadian governments should prioritize social development as much as economic growth.

Source: Student immigration visas are a money-making business

Filed under Immigration Tagged with ,

U.S. International Student Enrollment Dropped As Canada’s Soared

2022/03/07 Leave a comment

Striking comparison and highlighting of Canada’s advantage in post-graduate employment and pathway to permanent residency:

The number of international students enrolled at U.S. universities dropped prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, but enrollment soared at Canadian colleges and universities. A new analysis finds Indian graduate students in science and engineering have been the most likely to choose Canada over the United States because Canada makes it much easier to work in temporary status and gain permanent residence. The findings carry serious ramifications for the future competitiveness of U.S. companies and American universities.

“International student enrollment at U.S. universities declined 7.2% between the 2016-17 and 2019-20 academic years, before the start of the Covid-19 pandemic,” according a new analysis from the National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP). “At the same time, international student enrollment at Canadian colleges and universities increased 52% between the 2016-17 and 2019-20 academic years, illustrating the increasing attractiveness of Canadian schools due to more friendly immigration laws in Canada, particularly rules enabling international students in Canada to gain temporary work visas and permanent residence.”

The pandemic lowered U.S. enrollment further. The enrollment of international students at U.S. universities dropped 22.7% between the 2019-20 and 2020-21 academic years. Canada has not yet released comparable 2020-21 data but NFAP found other indicators that Canada also experienced lower enrollment in 2020-21 because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Talented individuals possess a range of choices on where to live, study and work, and the findings are a stark reminder that immigration policies matter. The latest U.S. statistics analyzed are from a National Science Foundation tabulation of Department of Homeland Security international student data and exclude individuals on Optional Practical Training (OPT). The Canadian data are from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada.

“The number of international students from India studying at Canadian colleges and universities increased 182% between 2016 and 2019 while at the same time, the enrollment of Indian students in master’s level science and engineering programs at U.S. universities fell almost 40%,” according to the NFAP analysis. “Indian student enrollment at Canadian colleges and universities increased nearly 300% between the 2015-16 and 2019-20 academic years.”

The more restrictive U.S. immigration system has affected the choices of Indian students. “Canada is benefiting from a diversion of young Indian tech workers from U.S. destinations, largely because of the challenges of obtaining and renewing H-1B visas and finding a reliable route to U.S. permanent residence,” according to Toronto-based immigration lawyer Peter Rekai.

While international students in Canada can gain permanent residence within one or two years, the Congressional Research Service (CRS)estimates it could take up to 195 years for Indian immigrants to get a green card in the United States in the employment-based second preference (EB-2). Canada has no per-country limit or low annual limits for employment-based immigrants as in the United States.

Canadian statistics on Indian immigrants are eye-opening. “The number of Indians who became permanent residents in Canada increased 115% between 2016 and 2020 and 2021,” noted the NFAP analysis. (The analysis took the average of 2020 and 2021 due to processing issues in Canada.) 

Other troubling findings for America’s tech future: “The enrollment of international students in master’s level computer sciences at U.S. universities has declined sharply over the past four to five years, fueled largely by the decline in graduate students from India in technical fields,” according to the NFAP report. “Between the fall 2016 and 2019, international students enrolled in master’s level programs in computer sciences at U.S. universities fell 20%, from 62,270 to 49,900. Between fall 2016 and 2020, the number of international students enrolled in master’s level programs in computer sciences at U.S. universities declined 39% or 24,040. 

“The story is similar in U.S. engineering programs. Between the fall 2016 and 2019, international students enrolled in master’s level programs in computer sciences at U.S. universities fell 29%, from 60,130 to 42,890. Between fall 2016 and 2020, the number of international students enrolled in master’s level programs in engineering at U.S. universities declined 52% or 31,070.”

Congress can change U.S. immigration laws in a positive direction and see more international students choose the United States as the place to study and make their careers. Maintaining the status quo is a recipe for stagnant or falling international student enrollment and less innovation and prosperity in the U.S. economy.

Source: U.S. International Student Enrollment Dropped As Canada’s Soared

Filed under Immigration Tagged with ,

Australia: gov plans could discourage int’l cohorts [students]

2022/03/07 Leave a comment

Indian and Chinese students also form about 50 percent of international students in Canada, although the share has shifted considerably: from 29.7 percent Indian and 2.3 percent Chinese in 2018 to 37.6 percent and 12.7 percent respectively in 2021:

The Australian government’s department of Education, Skills and Employment has proposed the establishment and publication of a diversification index which it describes as “an easy-to-understand measure… to improve transparency of diversity of international students at public universities”.

This would include a breakdown of domestic and international student enrolment data by country of origin. 

In 2020, 57% of Australian international students were from China and India, up from 46% in 2010. 

In a discussion paper released at the beginning of February, the Australian government warned of the need to manage “potential overexposure to particular markets”.

But the Group of Eight, which represents Australia’s leading research-intensive universities, said that while it welcomes the diversification of the sector, a different approach needs to be taken. 

“The risk is that Indian and Chinese students interpret an index as a sign that they are not welcome in Australia”

Vicki Thomson, chief executive of Go8, said, “Diversification should be a medium to long term strategy, and the risk is that Indian and Chinese students interpret an index as a sign that they are not welcome in Australia. The loss of these two large student cohorts would not only impact higher education and research, but also the broader bilateral relationships with these countries.”

Group of Eight universities, which include the University of Melbourne, the Australian National University, and the University of Sydney, enrol 38% of all international students across Australia. 

Thomson added that “international education is highly competitive and has become more so during the pandemic. Our closed borders have impacted our attractiveness as a higher education destination and this has been to the advantage of our competitors – UK, US and Canada.”

Go8 also called on the government to instead “support universities to rebuild and reshape the international education industry… through policy measures designed to promote the quality of Australia’s offerings to existing and new markets” including changes to scholarships and visas.  

The Australian government announced this week an investment of $10 million towards an International Education Fund.

Source: Australia: gov plans could discourage int’l cohorts

Filed under Immigration Tagged with ,

Les établissements francophones ontariens eux aussi plus touchés par les rejets de permis d’études

2022/02/24 Leave a comment

Of note. Would really be helpful to have more in-depth analysis of the factors that underlie these differences, rather than just the differences:

Les établissements postsecondaires francophones et bilingues de l’Ontario peinent à recruter des étudiants étrangers. Leur taux de refus de permis d’études auprès d’Immigration Canada est de loin supérieur à ceux observés dans les collèges et universités anglophones, a constaté Le Devoir.

Des directions francophones disent devoir travailler beaucoup plus fort que leurs collègues anglophones pour pouvoir atteindre leur cible de recrutement. Les deux seuls collèges de langue française de l’Ontario ont vu respectivement 67 % et 73 % des demandes de permis d’études de leurs futurs étudiants être refusées en 2021, d’après des données fournies par Immigration, Réfugiés et Citoyenneté Canada (IRCC). Il s’agit d’une amélioration par rapport à 2020, où la moyenne pour les deux s’élevait à 79 %. Dans les 22 collèges anglophones répertoriés dans la base de données d’IRCC, ce sont en moyenne 40 % des demandes qui ont été refusées en 2021 et 50 % en 2020.

L’écart est similaire entre les universités francophones et bilingues d’un côté, et celles anglophones de l’autre. À l’Université de Hearst, au nord de la province, par exemple, 72 % des demandes de permis d’études pour étudiants étrangers ont été déclinées en 2021 et 86 % l’année précédente. Quelque 85 % des demandes l’ont été au cours des deux dernières années à l’Université Laurentienne. À Thunder Bay, à l’Université Lakehead, la plus grande du nord de l’Ontario, un établissement anglophone, la situation est tout autre : en 2021, seulement 28 % des demandes de permis d’études ont été refusées.

Bululu Kabatakaka, le directeur des programmes postsecondaires et de l’intégration au collège Boréal, ne comprend pas ce qui cause cet écart. « Est-ce qu’il y a un biais inconscient par rapport aux pays francophones ? » se demande-t-il. Le Devoir révélait en novembre qu’Ottawa refusait de plus en plus d’étudiants de l’Afrique francophone.

Le dirigeant estime qu’il doit travailler considérablement plus fort que ses collègues pour atteindre ses cibles. « Quand nos collègues [d’autres collèges] travaillent 35 heures, nous, on travaille 150 heures », dit-il.

Le même phénomène se produit au collège La Cité d’Ottawa et à l’Université de Hearst. Le recteur de l’université, Luc Bussières, critique le gaspillage associé aux taux de refus élevés : des ressources sont dépensées inutilement pour le recrutement, et des rêves d’étudiants sont gâchés, dit-il. « Ça rendrait notre travail plus efficace si on avait un meilleur taux, explique le recteur. Si on veut 100 personnes, il faut faire 500 offres. »

« Nous devons généralement faire de 15 à 20 offres aux candidats pour que 10 étudiants acceptent notre offre et que 3 de ces étudiants obtiennent un permis d’études », raconte pour sa part Pascale Montminy, directrice des communications de La Cité. En 2021, 67 % des demandes de permis d’études au collège ont été refusées. À quelques kilomètres à l’ouest du centre-ville d’Ottawa, au collège Algonquin, qui est anglophone, le taux tombe à 40 %.

Problème difficile à régler

Ce type de problème dure depuis environ quinze ans, estime Martin Normand, directeur de la recherche stratégique et des relations internationales à l’Association des collèges et universités de la francophonie canadienne (ACUFC). « Les établissements interpellent IRCC et ses prédécesseurs pour demander des explications et des modifications, ou à tout le moins plus de transparence », fait savoir le directeur.

Le gouvernement fédéral souhaite depuis 2003 que les immigrants francophones représentent 4,4 % des nouveaux arrivants à l’extérieur du Québec. L’échéancier pour atteindre la cible avait d’abord été fixé à 2008, mais il a ensuite été reporté de 15 ans. Pourtant, Martin Normand remarque que les agents du ministère « reprochent souvent aux étudiants leur intention de rester au Canada à la fin de leurs études », explique le directeur de l’association. L’intention de faire une demande de résidence permanente après les études constitue un motif de refus pour les permis d’études, soutient-il. Le directeur était du groupe de témoins qui ont récemment critiqué l’approche d’Ottawa, qu’ils estiment contradictoire, devant le Comité permanent de la citoyenneté et de l’immigration.

Selon IRCC, même s’il existe une possibilité pour un étudiant étranger d’éventuellement devenir un résident permanent, chaque demandeur de permis doit convaincre l’agent d’immigration qu’il a l’intention de respecter ses obligations à titre de résident temporaire. Ainsi, chaque demandeur « doit être capable et désireux de quitter le Canada à la fin de sa période de séjour autorisé », explique Julie Lafortune, porte-parole du ministère, par courriel.

L’exercice d’analyse des établissements en ce qui concerne les motifs de refus est encore plus compliqué du fait du manque d’accès aux données. Lorsque contactées par Le Devoir au sujet des taux de refus, des directions ont dit ne jamais les avoir vues. « C’est un peu une boîte noire », lance Luc Bussières, recteur de l’Université de Hearst, qui compte entre 250 et 300 étudiants.

De l’université au collège

Les étudiants détenant un diplôme universitaire dans leur pays natal seraient aussi désavantagés s’ils souhaitent retourner aux études dans un programme collégial en Ontario, estime Bululu Kabatakaka. Dans sa campagne de recrutement, le Collège Boréal évoque la pénurie de main-d’œuvre dans la province, qui touche certains secteurs couverts par ses programmes, mais si des candidats étudiants tentent de répondre à ce besoin, ils se voient bloquer par IRCC, affirme M. Kabatakaka.

Il s’agirait plutôt de juger de la « bonne foi » des demandeurs, fait valoir IRCC. La demande d’une personne détenant déjà un diplôme universitaire pour suivre des études dans un domaine non connexe « ne pourrait peut‑être pas convaincre l’agent qu’il est un étudiant de bonne foi », cite comme exemple la porte-parole Julie Lafortune.

« Il faut que les agents comprennent bien les besoins des communautés francophones en matière d’immigration et de main-d’œuvre », affirme de son côté Martin Normand, de l’ACUFC.

Source: Les établissements francophones ontariens eux aussi plus touchés par les rejets de permis d’études

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , , , ,

Caste has become a university diversity issue in the US

2022/02/14 1 Comment

Hard to imagine that this also happens in Canada to some extent given the large number of South Asian students and grateful for information readers may have:

Many international students from disadvantaged groups hope to leave the entrenched social structures and caste discrimination behind and start afresh as they come to the United States or elsewhere. 

But to their consternation and horror, some South Asian students have found that caste discrimination is alive and well overseas, particularly where there is a large South Asia diaspora or foreign students on campus.

Mounting evidence of such discriminatory treatment and harassment led the California State University (CSU) system to add caste to its list of protected groups in January, prohibiting caste-based discrimination, harassment or retaliation. Other universities in the US are examining whether they should do the same. 

The CSU system, with some 485,000 students and about 56,000 faculty and staff, is sending a signal out to the rest of the university sector that caste discrimination exists and that affected students and staff require protection, say inclusivity activists who have campaigned for years to include caste-oppressed students and faculty. They have called the CSU decision an important civil rights win. 

“This is very important because we can now feel safer,” said Prem Pariyar, who recently graduated from CSU’s East Bay campus with a masters degree in social work. He began the campaign for caste protection at East Bay and helped extend it across CSU’s 23 campuses. 

“At least now the university has a policy to recognise our pain and to recognise our issues,” he told University World News. “In the US people are conscious about race and religion and the like but they did not know about caste discrimination.”

“Being a protected category is important as it means people like me [and] other students will feel more comfortable to go and complain. Before adding caste as a protected category, even if students reported to the administration, they would not understand what it is. It is not racial discrimination, but it is the same logic.”

Michael Uhlenkamp, senior director of public affairs in the CSU Chancellors Office, said: “While caste protections were inherently included in previous CSU non-discrimination policies, the decision to specifically name caste in the interim policy reflects the CSU’s commitment to inclusivity and respect, making certain each and every one of our 23 CSU campuses is a place of access, opportunity and equity for all.” 

“The existing processes for reporting instances of discrimination, whether based on caste or any of the categories listed in the policy, still apply,” he added. 

‘Long overdue’

“It’s long overdue. This was a campaign that we were working on for almost two and a half years,” said Thenmozhi Soundararajan, executive director of Equality Labs, a US-based civil rights organisation fighting for the rights of Dalits, a low-caste group formerly known as ‘untouchables’.

Equality Labs has been advising institutions and companies in the US. It carried out the first survey of Dalit discrimination among the South Asian diaspora in the US in 2016. In a sample of 1,500 respondents, “the numbers are high – one in four experience some form of physical or verbal assaults, one in three face discrimination in terms of their education and two out of three face workplace discrimination,” Soundararajan told University World News.

The survey was instrumental in convincing the CSU system to include caste in their policy, along with students like Pariyar, himself a Dalit, who were willing to speak out. 

“The whole process of educating and transforming these institutions towards caste equity has been one of very powerful testimony, and storytelling by really courageous and bold caste-oppressed students and faculty and campus community members. 

“And doing so under very difficult environments where caste bigots were literally intimidating, harassing and doxing them,” said Soundararajan, who is also a visiting scholar at the Center for South Asia, Stanford University. 

Soundararajan points to various types of campus discrimination – including discrimination with housing, work or student groups “openly using caste slurs and other microaggressions as well as more serious cases of gender-based violence like harassment and assault”. 

Equality Labs has been advising a large number of universities and colleges in the US, including providing advice from legal scholars “who have already done some thinking about this – we’ve worked with many institutions, large and small on these issues”.

“In our countries of origin, while there are laws to protect against caste oppression, there is a great deal of impunity and a lack of political will to enforce them. In the United States, however, because of the struggles of black and indigenous and other communities of colour, civil rights laws still have teeth,” Soundararajan explained.

“Increasingly, American institutions that are concerned about their liability related to civil rights and human rights compliance are proactively adding caste and making it explicit,” she noted. “When it’s not explicit, all the things that come from [being] a protected category don’t exist within the campuses’ or institutions’ purview.”

But universities are also key to educating society in general. “In making caste a protected category, institutions of higher learning are positioned to take the critical issue of caste oppression and discrimination seriously and to render it visible,” said Angana Chatterji, cultural anthropologist and scholar at the University of California (UC) Berkeley’s Center for Race and Gender.

“Such commitment is imperative to deepening the study of caste and generative of new knowledge formations attentive to its intersections with gender and race. And to developing support systems, curricula and interventions to dismantle caste oppression and caste privilege within the university,” she added.

Often invisible

Caste harassment can often be invisible to those outside the South Asian community, but that does not mean it does not exist outside Asia. 

“I have been experiencing caste discrimination from my childhood, but I did not imagine that caste discrimination exists in the US, but then I experienced it myself. I was discriminated against within campus and outside campus,” said Pariyar, who is from Nepal. His caste are often not allowed to sit at the same table as higher castes or share food. 

Pariyar, who arrived in the US in 2015, said other South Asians “will ask your name, what does your father do. Their intention is to know my caste identity. In the beginning the conversation is respectful, but after knowing my caste identity that respect is gone,” he said.

“This is happening in California and not just in California but elsewhere in the US,” he added, saying he was left embarrassed, humiliated and depressed by these experiences and preferred not to go to get-togethers, house parties or other parties where there were other South Asian students present. 

Others who face caste discrimination are often reluctant to speak out because, in effect, it means revealing their caste origins. Some of them drop their surname or adopt a caste-neutral surname.  

“Many people do not feel comfortable talking about this type of discrimination and they want to hide their identity because they want to be protected; they don’t want harassment from dominant-caste people,” noted Pariyar, who says he is talking to other campuses about similar protections, including the University of California system – separate from the California State University system – starting with UC Berkeley. 

“We have to take it step by step,” said Pariyar, noting the victories in the CSU system and elsewhere along the way. 

The wording varies in different institutions. Brandeis University added this category in December 2019 that says caste is a recognised and protected characteristic in the school’s anti-discrimination policy. In September 2021, UC Davis added ‘caste or perceived caste’ as a category to its anti-discrimination policy. 

Colby College of Maine revised its non-discrimination policy to add caste to its list of ‘protections for the campus community’. In December 2021 Harvard, the first Ivy League university to do so, “added protections for caste-oppressed students” to its graduate student union contract.

Before CSU included it more broadly, some student and faculty organisations passed resolutions last year calling on the university to add caste to its anti-discrimination policy. These include the California Faculty Association, a CSU labour union, as part of their collective bargaining agreement, and Cal State Student Association, a non-profit representing students across the university, in April 2021.

“The student resolutions really matter because when the voice of the students from all 22 campuses say ‘we need this’, it’s huge. So that began the engagement with the [CSU] Chancellor’s office, and they have their own legal team. So they’re confident about the choices,” said Soundararajan. “But we also connected them with top legal scholars on caste in the United States.”

Periyar says it was an uphill battle. When the CSU-wide resolution came up, the Hindu American Foundation (HAF), a Hindu lobby group, vehemently opposed it. Its website includes a comment by Sunil Kumar, professor of engineering at San Diego State University. 

Rather than redressing discrimination, “it will actually cause discrimination by unconstitutionally singling out and targeting Hindu faculty of Indian and South Asian descent as members of a suspect class because of deeply entrenched, false stereotypes about Indians, Hindus and caste,” he said. 

HAF had been virtually silent until then, perhaps not understanding the significance of student and faculty resolutions. But Pariyar counters: “This policy is not dividing. It is a policy of inclusion. There are marginalised students and they need to be included.”

Berkeley’s Chatterji said: “Hindu nationalist organisations in the diaspora have repeatedly attempted to silence conversations around caste oppression, gender and Islamophobia. If systems of higher education in California determine to make caste a protected category, it will have an impact not just on California, but nationally.”

A ‘caste curriculum’

Becoming more inclusive is also important in the context of broadening diversity of incoming international students. 

“It is already a topic of conversation on campuses on how to diversity the pool of international students, [to know] what are the systemic forms of discrimination that exist over time and how can US institutions make sure they are reaching a broader diversity of South Asian students,” said international education consultant Rajika Bhandari. 

“On-the-ground understanding is definitely required, because if policies are not shaped by individuals who deeply understand the context, it can fall into a kind of neocolonialist framework or a very Americanised view of another countries’ social issues,” she said. 

Social stratification by caste, prevalent in India for centuries, has variations by region and community, even within India and its neighbouring countries, as well as further afield in South Africa, East Africa and Southeast Asia – particularly in Singapore and Malaysia, the Caribbean and elsewhere with communities from South Asia, often since British colonial times. Its complexity is difficult to explain to others. 

Pariyar agrees universities will need to understand caste better in order to be truly inclusive. 

“Adding caste is not enough, application is very important,” he said. “We need a caste equity action plan”. 

“We need training and a curriculum. We need to train all the diversity and inclusion committee members, all the faculty within the CSU system about the gravity of caste discrimination, what it is and how it exists. There is visible discrimination and invisible discrimination and they need to understand that,” Pariyar said, adding that the university system needs to hire experts to train staff and faculty.  

Some of this expertise is provided by Equality Labs which says it helps institutions develop better tools and know the process of how to identify discriminatory behaviour on the basis of caste.

“Institutions need to create real metrics – enrolment metrics, application metrics – to get a sense of what the baseline of crimes or incidents are, then to be able to bring it down. Data is the key – if we don’t begin with a set of really strong KPIs [key performance indicators], we can’t measure progress,” said Soundararajan.

Source: Caste has become a university diversity issue in the US

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , , , ,

Australia: Early signs of international student numbers rebounding

2022/01/31 Leave a comment

Of note:

Australia’s position in the international higher education market weakened significantly while our border was closed over the past two years. But recent demand and application data suggest our position may be strengthening since the border re-opening was announced in November. 

More than 43,000 international students have arrived in Australia since 1 December.

The Australian share of demand from international students has recovered from a low of 16.22% in October 2021 to 19.68% in January 2022, despite rising COVID-19 case numbers driven by the Omicron variant. The real-time aggregated search data come from students researching their international study options on IDP’s digital platform. It’s a dataset of more than 100 million site visits a year.

This improving trend is also seen in student applications data. The largest intake for Australia is usually in semester one. There were concerns that northern hemisphere countries would gain from pandemic uncertainties this summer. 

These early signs of recovery are encouraging. However, we cannot confidently predict at this point the impact of this summer’s Omicron wave on enrolments. IDP survey data were showing Australia had a relatively strong reputation as a COVID-safe destination. 

What will it take to sustain the recovery?

Sustained market recovery is a longer-term project. To be globally competitive, universities should focus on creating a world-class student experience. Some changes may take time to build and communicate to the market. 

Strengthening skilled migration pathways for international students will also improve Australia’s market position.

The recently released Australian Strategy for International Education identifies the creation of a world-class student experience as a priority. It recommends universities work to create social connections between international students, domestic students and local communities. It also recommends they improve the classroom experience. 

There is evidence to support this approach. It would help address international students’ concerns about experiences of loneliness, racism and harassment for their political views.  

The Australian Productivity Commission’s 2020 report on its inquiry into mental health highlighted concerns for international students’ mental health. A 2021 QS survey of international studentssuggests COVID-19 added to these concerns due to increased social isolation and difficulties in accessing mental health services. 

In 2022, universities can act to improve the social integration and well-being of international students. Actions should cover COVID safety, welcoming and connecting new and returning students and re-engaging local communities on international education. This builds a platform for longer-term change.

Omicron presents challenges for the sector as semester one enrolments are finalised. Policy uncertainty and acrimonious public debate put at risk Australia’s reputation as a COVID-safe destination. 

Universities can act to ensure travel pathways and campuses are COVID-safe and meet the public health challenges of Omicron. Clear and timely communication is needed to reassure prospective students and their families.

Universities are putting in place programmes to welcome international students and support their social integration and well-being. The cohort of returning students requires specific attention as they reconnect to campus life. Some have been stranded outside Australia for up to two years, leaving them socially and educationally isolated. 

Local communities must be considered too

During the pandemic international students have been noticeably absent from local communities. Many, including tourism and hospitality operators, will welcome them back. 

But universities should not assume that welcome will be uniform. Anecdotally, some domestic students and their families are raising concerns about the impact of international education on the quality of the domestic student experience. 

Universities should act on these community concerns. This will help to rebuild the brand of international education over the longer term. 

In its road map to recovery, the Strategy for International Education recommends a stronger focus on domestic skills shortages. However, it is silent on issues relating to the policy settings that underpinned skilled migration for international graduates.

Students take into account opportunities for post-study work rights when deciding their destination of study. Research published in 2019 reported international graduates were ambivalent about the rights granted by temporary graduate visas. However, many still saw this visa class as a pathway to skilled migration. 

As Australia emerges into the post-COVID economy, key sectors face significant skill shortages. There is a strong case for the Australian government to revisit post-study work rights. Any policy changes would need to consider local political and community concerns. 

The aim should be stronger outcomes for the economy from a more competitive international higher education sector and great outcomes for local economies and communities through targeted post-study migration rights. 

The latest international higher education data are encouraging. But universities and government have more work to do to ensure recovery is sustained.

The author acknowledges the contribution of Andrew Wharton of IDP Connect to this article.

Ian Anderson. Palawa is deputy vice-chancellor (student and university experience) at the Australian National University. 

Source: https://www.universityworldnews.com/post-nl.php?story=20220125081813147

Filed under Immigration Tagged with ,

‘Anxious’ Chinese rethink study-abroad options, from Canada to Malta and beyond

2022/01/19 Leave a comment

Significant. May reverse the relative decline in Chinese students choosing Canada compared to other nationalities. Study permits issued to Chinese students fell from 24 percent in 2018 to 13 percent in 2021 (January-November numbers):

Amid the pandemic and geopolitical tensions with the West over the past two years, members of China’s middle class found themselves increasingly compelled to postpone plans to emigrate overseas, while others refrained from sending their children abroad to study.

But as a growing number of international schools in China have announced in recent months that they were shutting down or were accepting only foreign students in the wake of a nationwide crackdown on education, obtaining a Western-equivalent education at home has become more difficult.

As a result, a rising number of Chinese families are re-evaluating their emigration and foreign-study options.

Industry insiders also say there has been increased demand for Canadian immigration programmes, as well as for fast-track schemes to obtain foreign citizenship via investment opportunities in some small European countries and island nations.

Daisy Fu, who is based in Shenzhen and helps Chinese people obtain Malta citizenship, said business is up 20 per cent in the past two months. “Most of the clients are parents who are anxious about the new education policy,” she said.

Canada’s Immigrant Nominee Programme may also become a popular and practical solution for worried Chinese parents.

“The number of Chinese families applying for professional immigration to Canada will reach a new high in 2022,” said Jack Ho, chairman of Famed Star Group, an international consulting company helping clients immigrate to Canada.

“Whether they are high-net-worth individuals or middle-class white-collar workers, the rapid changes in China’s policies on education, property and wealth markets have prompted them to urgently start their immigration programmes as soon as possible,” Ho said.

In the past, around 95 per cent of families would opt to wait in China until obtaining their permanent residency in Canada, he said. But in recent months, that percentage has plummeted, and he said more than half of his customers told him that they wanted to move to Canada immediately upon receiving a work permit, so their children could begin school there more quickly.

He said his company has assisted with the Canadian immigration process for more than 1,000 families since 2017. This year, he expects their annual business could reach a record high, surpassing pre-pandemic numbers.

Under President Xi Jinping, ideological control has been tightened as the Communist Party tries to instil patriotism in younger generations and stifle dissent. In May, China passed new regulations tightening party oversight of private schools and restricting foreign players in the sector.

For years, Xi denounced the after-school tutoring sector as disruptive, burdensome and in need of regulation. That culminated in Beijing introducing tough new curbs on the lucrative private-education sector last year, despite strong demand from middle-class families for foreign education.

Under the Regulations for the Implementation of the Private Education Promotion Law, no new licences will be granted to international schools offering compulsory education – six years of primary education followed by three years of junior high school education. Chinese-run private schools teaching compulsory education are also banned from using foreign textbooks, though private schools teaching grades 10-12 can continue offering international curriculums.

“Two of my children had been attending an international school in Chengdu that used Singaporean textbooks and had a Western teaching style, with baseball lessons and other foreign languages,” said Zhang Na, who runs a tech-and-culture start-up in Chengdu, Sichuan province.

“The tuition ran about 70,000 yuan (US$11,000) a year, and I was very happy with everything the school offered, but it closed this semester due to a sudden change in policy, so I had to temporarily transfer my sons to a private local school that teaches only a Chinese curriculum.”

Zhang said her sons became extremely stressed amid the fierce competition and pressure to excel in examinations.

“I once set aside my wish to immigrate, but now I may have to put it back on the agenda for my children,” she said.

In December, international schools in Shenzhen – including the Bay Academy, Shenzhen Harrow Innovation Leadership Academy and the King’s School Shenzhen International – which had previously enrolled Chinese students, announced that they would either close or pivot their business model to focus on only foreign students.

And in November, one of Britain’s most prestigious private schools, Westminster School, said it would abandon its first overseas school in Chengdu, four years after the project had begun.

The school had ambitious plans to open six bilingual institutions in China, but “recent changes in Chinese education policy” forced the school to axe the entire project, according to Mark Batten, chair of the school’s governing body.

“It is highly unfortunate – the landscape for developing such schools now is very different from 2017,” Batten said in a letter to past and current students and staff.

In Beijing, education authorities are also pushing ahead with curriculum reform in private bilingual schools by requiring students to use Chinese textbooks adopted by public schools, and to take compulsory exams – known as the zhong kao – for admission to public senior high schools.

The Beijing World Youth Academy, with more than 1,200 students aged 5 to 18, complied with the mandate last year by requiring its grade 9 students to sit the exam – the first time the academy had done so in its 20 years.

A faculty member who spoke on condition of anonymity said the school had integrated subjects required by China’s statutory curriculum, such as Chinese language courses and maths to its Middle Years Programme – an International Baccalaureate programme requiring students aged 11 to 16 to study eight subject groups: two languages, humanities, sciences, mathematics, arts, physical education and technology.

“By doing so, we can help students acquire a [junior middle school] graduation certificate and an academic track record acknowledged by Chinese authorities,” the staff member said.

According to implementation regulations outlined in the Private Education Promotion Law, which went into effect in September, private schools can develop their own curriculums based only “on the standards of the state curriculum”. And the curriculums must be submitted to education authorities first. Students in grades 1-9 are also not allowed to be taught from foreign textbooks.

“More schools offering international curriculums are expected to require students to sit the zhong kao, as China is unifying admission standards for private and public senior high schools,” said Xiong Bingqi, deputy director of the Shanghai-based 21st Century Education Research Institute. “But regardless, international schools will only use zhong kao performance as a reference.”

Stephen Wang, the father of a grade 8 student at the Beijing World Youth Academy, said that although the zhong kao requirement has doubled his daughter’s workload, the academy’s inclusion in the national academic system may benefit her career in the future.

“My daughter makes painstaking efforts to study two sets of subjects. However, it may prove worth it someday. After returning from overseas, she’ll have the freedom to choose to develop a career in China,” said Wang, a 48-year-old private entrepreneur.

Susan Li, the mother of a grade 6 student at an international school in Beijing, said: “Our school hasn’t announced whether it will make the exams compulsory. But I’m afraid it will come sooner or later with the government’s tightened scrutiny of private schools.”

Nonetheless, the 45-year-old corporate executive said, “it would be a waste of time”.

“As we are determined to go to a university in the UK, preparing for and sitting domestic exams is really unnecessary,” Li said.

Source: ‘Anxious’ Chinese rethink study-abroad options, from Canada to Malta and beyond

Filed under Immigration Tagged with ,

← Older posts

Newer posts →