Ottawa

The province of British Columbia in Canada on Monday (Jan 29) announced it was banning new colleges from applying to enrol international students for the next two years, until February 2026 as the administration attempts to weed out "exploitive practices" from the system. 

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The province, home to a significant Indian student population, has witnessed several cases where colleges and universities have ripped them off. 

Post-Secondary Education Minister Selina Robinson cited the example of an Indian student whose family had saved money to send her to BC for "quality education". However, upon arriving, she was placed in online classes. 

"She arrived here being told that there would be in-class instruction, only to discover on her first day of class as she showed up that the entire course would be taught online, and she couldn't understand why she spent all that money for an online programme," Robinson said.

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"We do need to stop the bad actors from misleading these students, and that's what we're here to fix," she added. 

Currently, 175,000 international post-secondary students from more than 150 countries reside in BC with nearly 54 per cent enrolled in private colleges. 

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Two-year cap on international students

The decision by the province comes a little more than a week after the Canadian government announced an immediate two-year cap on the intake of international students. 

The new measures will also impose certain limitations on post-graduate work permits granted to international students which will most likely push them to go back to their home countries.

As per data from Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), there were 215,910 Indian international students in Canada out of 579,075. 

"These measures are to ensure that as future students arrive in Canada, they receive the quality of education that they signed up for and the hope that they were provided in their home countries. It would be a disservice to welcome international students to Canada knowing that now all of them are getting the resources they need to succeed in Canada," said immigration minister Marc Miller at the time. 

Also read | Explained | Canada's new visa norms and their impact on Indian students

The Justin Trudeau administration is looking to reduce the intake of students by 35 per cent in 2024 to about 3,60,000. Apart from the quality of education deteriorating, the housing crisis has been one of the main reasons for announcing the cap. 

Canada's population grew by more than 430,000 during the third quarter of 2023, which was the fastest in any quarter since 1957. The majority of the population increase was due to foreign nationals arriving at the universities. Reports state that Ottawa was facing a shortfall of 345,000 housing units, compounded by rising interest rates. 

(With inputs from agencies)