On the heels of the federal government capping international student visas, Ontario is introducing its own changes. It includes pausing new partnerships between publicly funded colleges and private schools.
The Ministry of Colleges and Universities announced today that it is introducing new measures to tackle the challenges that have arisen from a recent spike in international students.
"The challenges stemming from the recent spike in students coming to Canada, including predatory practices by bad-actor recruiters, misinformation regarding citizenship and permanent residency, false promises of guaranteed employment, and inadequate housing for students, require immediate attention and collaborative action,” said Jill Dunlop, Minister of Colleges and Universities, in a news release.
“At the same time, we need to strengthen the links between Ontario’s labour market needs and the programs being offered to students so we can get even more people into rewarding careers in health care and the skilled trades.”
The changes include reviewing programs post-secondary schools offer that have a "sizeable amount" of international students, ensuring programs meet the needs of the labour market, and putting a moratorium on new public college-private partnerships until oversight mechanisms are strengthened. New measures will also be implemented to improve student outcome survey response rates and all colleges and universities must have guaranteed housing options for incoming international students.
Strengthening the oversight of the private career colleges is also part of today's announcement.
The oversight includes enhanced data management, documentation process and making sure there's a timely response to concerns and complaints.
On Monday, Federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller announced a cap on the number of international students that can get visas and changed the rules concerning post-graduation work permits (PGWP) — students who begin study through public-private college partnership programs as of September will not be eligible.
The cap — 360,000 approvals for 2024, divvied up between provinces on the basis of population — will result in a 50 per cent decrease in permits in Ontario, which accepts by far the most international students, compared to 35 per cent overall. Current permit holders and those seeking master’s and doctoral degrees will not be included in the cap.
Ontario says it will work with the federal government and other partners to "further crack down on bad-actor recruiters who take advantage of international students and make dubious claims of employment and citizenship."
Northern College in Timmins has seen a drastic enrolment increase through its partnership with Pures College, a private career school in Scarborough. Pures is a designated learning institute (DLI) where students can attend its Toronto campus and receive a Northern College diploma.
Through the partnership, the school has seen its enrolment triple in the past decade and its revenue for international programs increase by $55 million from 2022 to 2023.
SEE: Timmins college making millions through student visa program at heart of federal changes
The influx of international students has also made for some challenges for the northern school.
In August 2023, the acceptance letters for 503 international students — mostly from India — enrolled in Northern College programs at Pures College after the number of student visas issued by the Ministry of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) far exceeded the school’s capacity to run programs.
In November, the conditional offers of 211 people who hadn’t secured the required student visa were deferred after Northern College realized it couldn’t support the numbers projected for January 2024.
For Northern's part, it has already started to implement changes.
It's voluntarily taking part in a pilot program to establish international quality assurance measures for post-secondary education in Ontario. It includes an audit of student support to create guidelines and increased services.
“Sustainable growth and program excellence has been at the heart of all initiatives undertaken,” reads the college's statement.
- With files from The Trillium
