Dear Mr Brown,

I hear that globally study permits in Canada are refused a lot because the overall system has lost its integrity. How can Canada allow this to happen and what will be done to address this problem?

SG

Dear SG,

Immigration Minister Marc Miller has publicly stated that the system for international students has lost integrity. With dwindling provincial funding, post-secondary education institutions have turned to international students as a revenue source. It is being suggested that the money that universities and colleges can make from international students has led to a flood of academically-weak applicants.

Refusal Rates Globally

Overall, between January 1, 2022, and April 30, 2023, the Immigration Department approved 54.3 per cent of study permit applicants. Ontario is the top destination for international students and hosts the largest number of Designated Learning Institutions in Canada. According to the data from the Immigration Department, among Ontario universities with larger international student populations, the University of Toronto had a 90 per cent approval rate, while Waterloo and McMaster were both around 86.5 per cent.

Among the public colleges in Ontario, Lambton had 70 per cent of the study permit applications approved, while most other colleges had rates ranging between 50 per cent and 69 per cent. Conestoga College had the highest number of study permit applications of which 51 per cent of its 61,612 applications were approved. The approval rates for Niagara College (main campuses) and St Clair were 42.6 per cent and 42 per cent, respectively.

Experts say study permit approval and refusal rates do not necessarily reflect the quality of education offered by educational institutions. However, the immigration minister has stated that there is a responsibility on behalf of the provinces that designate the learning institutions in question to make sure that those are actually the institutions that are worthy of getting visas.

Aggressive Recruitment

The number of study permit holders in Canada has tripled in the past decade, from 300,000 in 2013 to nearly 900,000 this year. International students, through spending and tuition, contribute Can$22 billion to the economy and support 200,000 jobs. However, the current affordable housing crisis and rising cost of living have seen many international students struggling to seek employment and secure shelter.

Unregulated Agents

The international student programme has been in the spotlight amid aggressive recruiting campaigns by the post-secondary education sector, and by unregulated foreign agents. Migrants increasingly look at studying in Canada as a back door to work and earn permanent residence here.

In the past, most universities and colleges directly contracted individual recruiters in other countries to recommend prospective students. Now, universities and colleges have off-loaded the work and recruit en masse through aggregators’ online platforms, which work with thousands of unregulated sub-agents on the ground.

The Canadian Immigration Lawyers Association has made a submission to the federal government on the international student programme and recommends overseas education agents be regulated by provinces and designated learning institutions be accountable for their agents’ activities and conduct. For example, many students utilise the services of education agents that are neither employed directly by the universities and colleges nor regulated immigration consultants in their country of residence. As such, the association urges Canada to mandate the institutions to employ overseas agents directly and release their names, citizenship and location of work.

Please visit JAMAICA2CANADA.COM for additional information on Canadian Permanent Residence programs, including Express Entry, The Study & Work program, Visas or Appeals, etc.

Antonn Brown, BA, (Hons), LLB, MSc, RCIC, is an immigration counsel and an accredited Canadian education agent of JAMAICA2CANADA.COM – a Canadian immigration & education firm in Kingston, and AfriCanadaServices.com in Abuja, Nigeria. Send questions/comments to documents.jamaica2canada@gmail.com