The Canadian government has unveiled "key elements" of its long awaited international education strategy, allocating CAN$23 million to supporting the plan in the latest federal budget, despite the country’s fiscal struggles. It has also promised $42 million to speed up visa processing.
Canadian language schools are facing uncertainty over new proposals to tighten up the student visa system. One concern is a requirement that provinces decide which educators can and cannot accept foreign students, which could leave some language schools overlooked. Work-study "co-op" programmes – an important segment of the market – could also be abolished.
Continuing to expand its educational reach, the Canadian government collaborated with the Canadian Bureau for International Education for the country's first education mission to Ukraine where an overarching MoU was signed between CBIE and The Union of Rectors of Higher Educational Institutions of Ukraine.
In a bid to tackle persisting student visa delays, Canadian Immigration and Citizenship has published a list of projected processing times for different country markets, along with guidelines for students on speeding up the application process. Observers say the move will provide clarity to the market.
Public schools from across Canada will participate in their first ever trade mission to Turkey. Led by the Canadian Association of Public Schools-International (CAPS-I), the trip aims to attract high school students from Turkey and expand Canada's ties with the country. High school fees average around CAN$12,000 a year per international student.
ISIS Education, based in London, UK, has expanded its operations into North America by acquiring Vancouver Maple Leaf College Inc, which operates two English language schools in Canada under the Eurocentres brand.
A delegation of universities from the Canadian province of Nova Scotia was in the UK last week, seeking to recruit British students into the Canadian university system. They were taking advantage of the hike in tuition fees at British universities, which is seeing students increasingly look abroad.
British Columbia, which welcomes almost 30% of all international students in Canada, has refreshed the website it uses to market itself as a study destination. BC hosted 100,700 international students in 2010-11, up from 94,000 the previous year, but authorities want this to reach 150,000 by 2015.
