Canada Announces Two-Year Cap On International Student Permits (Photo by sebastiaan stam on Unsplash)As part of addressing the severe housing crisis, Canada has announced its plan to restrict international students from moving into the country. On Monday, Canada made a crucial announcement that there will be an immediate, two-year cap on international student permits. The government also said that it would stop giving work permits to some postgraduate students.
As per the statement released by the Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), the cap is expected to result in approximately 360,000 approved study permits. Notably, this is a decrease of 35 percent from 2023. Immigration Minister Marc Miller said the federal government will work with the provinces on this matter.
Marc Miller also noted that some private institutions in the country have taken advantage of international students by operating under-resourced campuses. The minister said that such campuses lack support for students and charge high tuition fees, all the while increasing their intake of international students. “This increase is also putting pressure on housing, healthcare and other services,” Marc Miller said, as quoted by Reuters.
IRCC mentioned in its statement that the integrity of the international student system has been “threatened” in recent years. The IRCC said that the Canadian government is moving forward with measures to stabilize the number of international students in the country as part of protecting international students from bad actors and supporting sustainable population growth in Canada.
It is to be noted that study permit renewals will not be impacted by this move. Students pursuing master’s and doctoral degrees and elementary and secondary education in the country are not included in the cap. “To implement the cap, as of January 22, 2024, every study permit application submitted to IRCC will also require an attestation letter from a province or territory,” added IRCC in the statement released on January 22.
The latest measures by the Canadian government will be in place for two years, and the number of new study permit applications that will be accepted in 2025 will be re-assessed at the end of this year. Apart from study permit caps, Canada has also announced modifications to the eligibility criteria for the Post Graduation Work Permit (PGWP). The new measures are expected to impact Indian students, as they represent Canada’s majority of the international student population.