\n<\/p>\n
Canada is unlikely to reconsider lifting its cap on international student numbers despite a critical report that found the policy was badly designed and led to unintended consequences.<\/p>\n
The auditor general of Canada has identified significant issues with the limits the country introduced on study permit applications\u00a0in January 2024, criticizing the design, monitoring and oversight of the restrictions with \u201ccritical weaknesses\u201d in its integrity control.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0drastic impact of the policy\u2014with new international study visas issued by Canada dropping by nearly 90\u00a0percent, from 456,690 in 2023 to 50,370 by September 2025\u2014was also not foreseen by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, the report found.<\/p>\n
Some provinces were expected to see increases of 10\u00a0percent but actually suffered decreases of 59\u00a0percent or more in approved new study permits in 2024 compared with the year before.<\/p>\n
But Alex Usher, president of Higher Education Strategy Associates, said the chances of a rethinking of the policy within the next two years were very low, because the government credits it for making the housing crisis go away as a political issue.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s less that the actual policy was poorly thought out than that the government chose to accompany the policy with messaging that attacked the sector as being low quality,\u201d Usher said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThat destroyed the brand and led to a huge falloff in applications, which as the report shows, did far more damage than the policy itself.\u201d<\/p>\n
Usher said the episode shows the \u201cruthless\u201d nature of the Liberal Party\u2019s desire to hold on to a majority government.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf a few institutions have to die, and one already has, so that the Liberals stay in power, that\u2019s just fine with them,\u201d said Usher, referring to the closure of the\u00a0Manitoba Institute of Trades and Technology, announced in February.<\/p>\n
The report also found that when irregularities in the system were identified, the department rarely followed up on them. <\/p>\n
About 800 people were identified as having misrepresented information or used fraudulent documents in their applications.<\/p>\n
Christopher Worswick, professor of economics at\u00a0Carleton University in Ottawa, said this showed the system had not been well designed to accommodate the huge surge seen before the caps were brought in, adding that the international student policy had been \u201cnot well thought out and very poorly executed.\u201d<\/p>\n
He was hopeful that the report,\u00a0and the \u201cneedless\u201d damage done to the university sector,\u00a0could trigger some changes in government policy.<\/p>\n
Roopa Trilokekar, associate professor of education at\u00a0York University in Toronto, said the caps policy was \u201clargely reactionary,\u201d as the federal government was responding to mounting public pressure and growing anti-immigration sentiment.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn this context, the government\u2019s response was poorly coordinated, inadequately planned and insufficiently communicated,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe lack of attention to regional impacts and the potential damage to Canada\u2019s global reputation represents a significant oversight\u2014one that might have been avoided through more thorough consultation and a more measured, phased approach.\u201d<\/p>\n
She warned that both provincial governments and postsecondary institutions are now facing considerable uncertainty.<\/p>\n
\u201cInstitutions are now dealing with staff layoffs, program closures, declining enrollments and growing financial strain. Universities\u2019 ability to advance their internationalization strategies has been significantly weakened.\u201d<\/p>\n
Audrey Macklin, professor of law at the\u00a0University of Toronto, said the report revealed some of the larger defects in a system that treats international students as \u201cfodder.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said it is an example of \u201cpolitics over policy,\u201d as the government \u201cripped the rug out from under\u201d international students.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Canada is unlikely to reconsider lifting its cap on international student numbers despite a critical report that found the policy was badly designed and led to unintended consequences. The auditor general of Canada has identified significant issues with the limits the country introduced on study permit applications\u00a0in January 2024, criticizing the design, monitoring and oversight<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":48142,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[318,4969,10887,531,331,393],"class_list":{"0":"post-48141","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"tag-canada","9":"tag-caps","10":"tag-flawed","11":"tag-international","12":"tag-stick","13":"tag-student"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48141"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48141\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/48142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}