KATHMANDU, Jan 23: Canada is set to cut international student enrollment.  In 2024, Canada will cut international student enrollment by 35 percent and grant visas to only 360,000.

Enrollment numbers are set to decrease for two years after the growing population of foreign students put extreme pressure on the housing and health sectors of the country.

Marc Miller, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship of Canada, announced the two-year cut in enrollment on Monday, stating the rule will apply to those who want to enter diploma and undergraduate programs. This rule will not apply to students who wish to renew their study permit. Those pursuing master’s and doctoral degrees, and elementary and secondary education are not included in the cap. Current study permit holders will not be affected.

Similarly, the Canadian government will henceforth not give 'work permit' to students who have started from colleges run on public-private partnership model. Most of these colleges are located in Ontario. Miller said that the new law is not against international students and that these rules will help maintain the quality of education.

A quota will be decided in advance on how many foreign students will be admitted in which province and region of the country. Based on the population of those regions, the number will be determined in this way. The government of Canada hopes that this rule will reduce the number of foreign students, which has increased rapidly in one province.

“In some provinces, only 50 percent of foreign students will be admitted,” Miller said. Provinces and territories will decide how to distribute permits. This percentage of reduction will be more than 50% in some provinces including Ontario. More than half of the 2022 international students were in Ontario.

Miller said that the federal government made this decision against the monopoly of small private colleges. He said that some educational institutions are giving fake business degrees in the name of providing education. It has been found that foreign students who want to live in Canada take such fake degrees. He said that there could be hundreds of colleges giving 'fake degrees' and the number of such colleges has increased in recent years.

The government, which has announced a two-year student reduction, has also arranged for students who want to study in Canada to get an 'attestation letter' from the provinces and territories.

Miller also announced changes to the post-graduation work permit program. Starting September 1, 2024, international students who begin a study program that is part of a curriculum licensing arrangement will no longer be eligible for a post graduation work permit upon graduation. Under curriculum licensing agreements, students physically attend a private college that has been licensed to deliver the curriculum of an associated public college. These programs have seen significant growth in attracting international students in recent years, though they have less oversight than public colleges and they act as a loophole with regards to post-graduation work permit eligibility.

Students studying in postgraduate and short graduate level programs are eligible to apply for a three-year work permit. Spouses of people coming to Canada to study in post-graduate and doctoral programs can apply for an open work permit. However, the spouses of international students in other levels of study, including undergraduate and college programs, will no longer be eligible.

It is said that the surge in international students coming to Canada is straining housing, health care, and various other services. In efforts to safeguard these students from malicious entities and to promote balanced population growth, the Canadian government is implementing these strategies to regulate the influx of international students.

 
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