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Data from IRCC has revealed that in the first 11 months of 2021, there were 397,210 study permit holders who came to Canada as of November. That number puts us on track to welcome 433,320 international students to Canada’s colleges and universities by the end of the year.
During the first year of the pandemic, the number of international study permit holders in Canada fell by 36.1 per cent, to 256,165, but has since strongly rebounded.
Here are 7 reasons why international students are migrating to Canadian colleges & universities, even during a global pandemic.
Canada is home to some of the world’s best universities. According to the latest QS World University Rankings 2022, 26 Canadian universities are among the top 1,000 best places to study, with ten ranking in the top 25%.
Ontario, British Columbia and Quebec are the most popular Canadian provinces for international students. Many of Canada’s top universities are located in these 3 provinces.
Canada has some of the most vibrant cities in the world. The Time Out hospitality website ranked Montreal as the sixth most vibrant city in the world in its Time Out Index, a poll of 27,000 city dwellers from Melbourne to Madrid, Chicago to Copenhagen, and Tel Aviv to Tokyo.
That puts the Canadian city in the francophone province of Quebec ahead of such international hotspots as Tokyo, Los Angeles, London, Barcelona, Mexico City, Melbourne, Madrid, Shanghai, Singapore and Miami.
In 2018, the IRCC launched the SDS for China, India, the Philippines, and Vietnam for the first time. In 2019, it was expanded to include Pakistan, Morocco, and Senegal. Canada opened its doors even wider to international students in early July of last year, allowing applications to the Student Direct Stream (SDS) from seven more countries in Central and South America and the Caribbean.
In that same year, the IRCC granted nearly 16,000 study permits to applicants from the seven countries now included in the SDS, including approximately 10,000 from Brazil and 4,400 from Colombia.
SDS now covers 14 countries, bringing the total number of countries covered by the program. SDS is a four-year-old program that expedites the processing of study permit applications for students who want to study in Canada.
International students with a Post-Graduation Work Permit can work in Canada for up to three years after graduation and are exempt from Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA) requirements. That makes it easier for Canadian employers to hire them.
The Study and Stay Program in Atlantic Canada also provides a full range of services to some international students in order to help them fully integrate into Canadian society. The programme was created to supplement the now-permanent Atlantic Immigration Pilot, which includes a specific international student stream that offers permanent residence to graduates with a job offer from a recognised employer.
In order to immigrate to Canada, you need a certain CRS score. For those who have a three-year undergraduate degree or master’s or doctoral degree from university, those degrees can add 30 points to someone’s CRS score. That makes it all the more likely for them to immigrate over someone with an identical education but from another country
A survey found that one-third of international students want to immigrate to Canada upon completion of their studies. The extra points for a Canadian education are a powerful incentive for students to study in Canada.
Canada established a vaccine passport system so that fully vaccinated international students would not be subjected to quarantine upon arrival.
International students in Canada were also given the option of completing their studies online while still qualifying for a Post-Graduation Work Permit (PGWP). With so many international students unable to travel to Canada due to COVID-19 restrictions, the measure was implemented in February 2021. In November, it was extended again.
The provinces, too, created a welcoming environment for international students, in some cases, like in Quebec and Nova Scotia, offering them free COVID-19 vaccinations.
Canada is seeing massive job creation numbers, leading to serious labour shortages in many fields. This is a perfect opportunity for students who have skills ready for the workplace and are able to take advantage of these opportunities.
According to Statistics Canada (Canada’s national statistical agency), the number of job vacancies in Canada reached an all-time high of 912,600 in the third quarter of 2021, as employers and workers continued to adjust to easing public health restrictions and rapidly-evolving economic conditions.
International students who have recently graduated and are working in Canada under a PGWP can apply through the Express Entry system by submitting an online profile known as an Expression of interest (EOI) to the Express Entry Pool under one of three federal Canada immigration programs or a participating provincial immigration program.
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