Indian students in Canada
Contents |
Year wise statistics
Number of Indian students, 2004, 2015
Lubna Kably, Canada's new residency points plan to aid Indians, Nov 21 2016 : The Times of India
According to Canadian government statistics published by the Canadian Magazine of Immigration, the number of foreign students in Canada has more than doubled over the past decade from 1.72 lakh in 2004 to 3.56 lakh as at the end of 2015. India was the second largest source country , since 2012. The number of Indian students rose by 630% from just 6,675 in 2004 to 48,914 in 2015, constituting 13.7% of the total foreign student population. Engineering, including IT, business management, pharmacy related courses and hospitality management are generally top choices for Indian students wishing to study in Canada.
Number of Indian and Chinese students, 2017
Lubna Kably, Canada speeds up student visa process for Indians, June 27, 2018: The Times of India
_students_in_Canada_in_2017.jpg)
From: Lubna Kably, Canada speeds up student visa process for Indians, June 27, 2018: The Times of India
HIGHLIGHTS
The number of Indian students opting for studies in Canada is on the rise
The new program cuts down the processing time for study permits (which are student visas) to within 45 days as opposed to within 60 days will be helpful.
Canada has introduced a faster and simpler visa processing mechanism for students from India and three other countries. The number of Indian students opting for studies in Canada is on the rise + and this new program which cuts down the processing time for study permits (which are student visas) to within 45 days as opposed to within 60 days will be helpful.
Students from India, China, Vietnam and Philippines who demonstrate upfront that they have the requisite financial resources and language skills to succeed academically in Canada are eligible to opt for the newly introduced ‘Student Direct Stream’ (SDS) program.
The erstwhile Student Partners Program (SPP) that entailed less visa documentation and quicker processing was more narrow in scope and available only to students applying to 40 odd participating Canadian colleges. On the other hand, the SDS program, introduced in early June, is available to students opting for post-secondary courses (ie: college education) at all designated learning institutes, according to a statement issued by the Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), which is the Canadian government’s immigration division.
This announcement almost coincides with the UK’s government decision to exclude Indian students from easier visa norms. Given the growing protectionism in UK and USA, the number of Indian students opting for Canada is steadily growing. Indian students obtained 83,410 study permits during 2017, a rise of 58% over the previous year.
Earlier, including during 2015 and 2016, Chinese students were the largest class of international students to be allotted the study permits. India topped this list in 2017, with its students garnering 26% of the total study permits issued in that year, with China following closely behind. The trend of Indian students being the largest class of international students is is more pronounced during the period January to April 2018, with 29,000 odd Indian students obtaining the study permits as opposed to 16,925 from China. These statistics are based on an analysis done by TOI, of the open data available on the Canadian government’s website (see table).
According to the Canadian Bureau for International Education, a non-profit agency in the educational domain, there were 4.95 lakh international students studying in Canada at the end of 2017, a rise of 20%. In an email reply to TOI, a spokesperson from the IRCC said that top source countries for international students, who were present in Canada as of December 3, 2017, were China (with 1.40 lakh students), India (with 1.24 lakh students) and Republic of Korea (with 23,050 students).
Ontario-based Talha Mohani, immigration law specialist and managing director at Migration Bureau Corp, explains the nitty-gritty of the SDS program “A study permit application is assessed in terms of eligibility and admissibility, which include finance, language and medical. Under the SDS program several of these criteria are to be satisfied upfront. The student must pay the first semester tuition fee, in addition to buying a guaranteed investment certificate of Canadian $ 10,000. A minimum score of 6 for English in the International English Language Testing System is also required. The applicant also has to submit a copy of the upfront medical exam confirmation document. Given that some key criteria are met upfront when the application is made, enables the IRCC to reduce the time required to verify and complete the assessment process.”
“Canadian education and work experience (internship experience counts) are extremely valuable when it comes to job prospects in Canada,” cites a job facilitator. Cynthia Murphy, interim India regional manager at Canadian Immigrant Integration Program, says, “Canadian college students including international students usually complete a work placement (internship) as part of their study course. This enables them to connect with future employers.”
According to IRCC, “The SDS complements the express entry system as these students will be well placed to continue on the path to permanent residence and Canadian citizenship after completing their studies in Canada, if they wish to.”The express entry program for permanent residency in Canada is point based and a Canadian education helps garner extra points. Mohani explains that an applicant can get 15 extra points for a post secondary education program in Canada which is of a one to two year duration and 30 points if it is of a duration of three years or more. While official data is not available on the most popular courses that Indian students opt for, industry watchers say that business management, civil engineering, software engineering, medicine, and hospitality are some of the popular courses.
2018, 2019: 68.3% increase in study permits
Lubna Kably and Yogita Rao, February 18, 2020: The Times of India
From: Lubna Kably and Yogita Rao, February 18, 2020: The Times of India
The number of Indian students to be granted a study permit by Canada’s immigration agency, exceeded one lakh for the second consecutive year. In 2019, Canada approved of a little over than 4 lakh study permits of which 1.39 lakh or 34.5% went to Indian students, followed by Chinese who bagged 21% of the new study permits. In 2018, Canada had granted a total of 3.55 lakh study permits — the newly released figures for 2019 signify an overall increase of 13.8% over the previous year.
An analysis of the past three years shows that while the number of Chinese students to be granted a study permit has shown a miniscule decline, the inflow of students from India is steadily on the rise. The number of Chinese students to be granted study permits in 2019, at 84,710 was slightly lower than the previous year’s figure of 85,165. In contrast the number of Indian students to be granted a study permit has increased by 30.3% to 1.39 lakh, over the previous year’s figure of 1.07 lakh. With just 82,990 permits granted to Indian students in 2017, it reflects a 68.3% increase over two years.
Canada is increasingly attracting more foreign students. This can be attributed to various factors such as uncertainties relating to optional training programmes (OPT) for international students in US — some of these issues were settled via court intervention. Post completion of US studies there are also challenges in obtaining an H-1B visa (the most commonly used work visa) for those at the entry level.
Karan Gupta, a study abroad career counsellor, said, “If a student studies in Canada he or she is more likely to land a wellpaying job and settle down in the country. This is the primary reason for the numbers going up.” He added that the country is perceived to be safe and welcoming of foreigners. “The country also has some world-renowned universities such as the University of Toronto, University of Waterloo and McGill university and students are keen to attend these universities,” said Gupta. With the UK now offering a two-year work permit to students from next year, some students who were considering Canada may now consider UK, he added.
Canada permits students to work part-time and fund their studies and a post-graduation work permit (PGWP) is available for a maximum of up to three years (based on the study course). The Canadian education and work experience, also helps garner higher points under the Express Entry route, if the erstwhile student wishes to obtain permanent residency. To top it all, job opportunities in the technology space are increasing in Canada. “Education is a by-product of the desire to get a livelihood. Students are seeing Canada as an easier option for migration,” said KP Singh, CEO of Institute of Management and Foreign Studies.
Wuhan, As in 2020
MUMBAI: Wuhan was on no one’s radar till only few years back.
The epicentre of corona virus is now host to hundreds of medical aspirants from around the world, including India. It became a magnet, attracting medical aspirants from India after it started offering MBBS in English a year back.
Hundreds queued up outside Wuhan and 45 Chinese institutes which offer medicine in the lingua franca. Data in 2019 shows that 21,000 Indian students signed up at Chinese medical schools, taking the neighbour to the No 1 position for wannabe doctors. Besides the 45 colleges, some Indians are enrolled in 200-odd colleges where they study in English/Chinese languages.
Russia, with 58 institutes enlisted by Medical Council of India, sees a little over 6,000 Indians flying in to pursue MBBS. Yet, as per information from National Board of Examinations, the pass percentage of students, graduated from medical colleges in Russia and China, in Foreign Medical Graduate Exam (FMGE) in 2015-18 is 12.91% and 11.67% respectively.
“Medical aspirants look at all avenues as getting medical admission is very difficult and expensive. Countries like China offer cheaper medical studies and same, if not better, infrastructure as India,” said Karan Gupta, a counsellor who works with students heading abroad.
Average tuition for a Chinese medical university is $2,000-3,000 annually, plus $1,000 for living expenses. In 2015, there were over 13,500 Indian students in China, as India ranked among top 10 nations sending students to Chinese varsities.
China, a large student-sending country, became the third most-favoured nation of international students after US and UK. It also paced up as a host destination and is the fifth ranked choice for Indians leaving shores for education.
“China is selling the medical programme very strongly among Indians. They started teaching in English and their institutes are recognised by WHO,” said another counsellor, Pratibha Jain. With new recruits joining English medium medical course, Gupta and other experts feel students getting back after graduation have a better chance at cracking FMGE and getting a licence to practice in India.
2021 – 23: a declining trend In management studies
From: Manash Gohain, March 29, 2024: The Times of India
See graphic:
2021 – 23: a declining trend In Indian students seeking management studies in Canada
Preferred colleges and universities
Northern College, Timmins, Ontario
Dec 25, 2023: The Times of India
In remote Canada, a college becomes magnet for Indians
Most Students In College Likely To Be From Punjab Or Gujarat
Timmins (Canada) : On a college campus in northern Canada, eight hours by car from Toronto, most of the students who fill the classrooms are from a country half a world away: India. The young men and women in the gymnasium are more likely to be from Punjab or Gujarat rather than rural Ontario. Hindi and Punjabi drowned out English in the cafeteria’s lunchtime cacophony.
In the surrounding city of Timmins, the servers at two new Indian restaurants do not ask customers how spicy they want their dishes. A shuttered bar named Gibby’s has been reopened as a Sikh temple where students from the school, Northern College, gathered on a recent evening. “We feel like we are in India,” said Mehardeep Singh, 20, a general arts and science major. “In every class, there are only three or four local people. The rest are from India.”
Northern College traditionally drew its students from the province of Ontario’s vast, sparsely populated hinterland, a region dominated by miners and loggers. Today, a whopping 82% of the public college’s students come from abroad — nearly all from India. How a Canadian college — in a remote town most Canadians have never visited, where winters can feel subarctic — became a magnet for young Indians is the story of the many forces buffeting the country.
Public colleges and universities, hit hard by budget cuts, have grown dependent on the higher tuitions international students must pay. For students from abroad, the institutions can be a conduit to permanent Canadian residence, and for Canada, the students help reduce labour shortages and increase the country’s flagging productivity.
More than 60% of foreign students in Ontario’s public colleges are from India — a dependence the province’s auditor general identified as a risk to the schools’ survival.
As a result, PM Justin Trudeau’s accusations in September that the Indian government was involved in the killing of a Canadian Sikh separatist near Vancouver sent tremors through Ontario’s educational institutions. The episode has strained relations between Canada and India, which categorically denied any involvement.
At Northern College — where Indians make up 96% of foreign students — officials said they would intensify efforts to recruit more students from Africa and Indo nesia to reduce their dependence on India.
“We don’t want all our eggs in one basket,” said Audrey Penner, the college’s president, adding that if the tensions between India and Canada persisted, “our market might dry up regardless of any efforts that we take.”
Indians make up the largest group by far, accounting for 40% of international students across the country, according to the Canada Bureau for International Education. China ranks second, at 12%. Northern appeared to tap into an increasingly rich segment of the Indian population, with many students saying they were the first in their families to study overseas.
Across Canada, the influx of foreign students has been so great that it is blamed for worsening housing shortages. At Northern, the college revoked admissions of several hundred international students this year after realising Timmins lacked housing, Penner said. Jobs to help pay for college have also been a challenge.
Still, if students ultimately get permanent residence, Mandeep Kaur, 23, says, “then I think it’s worth it.”
NYT
