Canada streamlines the student visa process for India, China, Vietnam and the Philippines

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) introduces the new study permit guidelines for students from India, China, Vietnam and the Philippines.

Since April 2009, the ambitious plan called the Student Partners Program (SPP) had been operational in India until three days back. The success of this proactive plan to invite international students, especially from India and China was evident and was all set to invite a great number of students year on year basis. Because of the consistency of this visa policy program, IRCC witnessed a multifold rise in the student number from India and other countries.

With the grand success of SPP, IRCC is making great strides in promoting Canada as a study destination for international students by implementing efficient ways to process study permits. Now, the government has decided to replace the SPP with the Student Direct Stream (SDS). The SDS visa framework is effective from 9^th June 2018 in four countries: India, China, Vietnam and the Philippines. More importantly, the Government of Canada is working on expanding this SDS program to Africa and contemplating adding Kenya and Senegal. Senegal seems to be getting priority because it has a rich French colonial heritage. Recently, we have seen the government is keen on inviting international students and intended immigrants who are proficient in French language to meet the acute needs of the French speaking manpower in certain industries and in various pockets of the country. Senegal fits into this story!

All these four countries and probably along with the new entrants i.e. Africa, Kenya and Senegal would be aligned together into one program to ensure the operational smoothness and consistency.

What all new changes have been introduced in the SDS program? Let’s study the existing policies versus the previous ones:

* The Government website doesn’t clarify the score of individual module, but the country-specific-checklist does.

All these new changes have now become a reality. What ramifications could we expect from these new changes in the context of Indian students wishing to study in Canada?

• The upfront tuition payment for the first year: To date, parents/sponsors have been paying the one semester tuition fees before the final application for a study permit was lodged. For example, if we take the average of annual tuition fee of any community college on the upper side it comes to around CAD$ 14,000 (₹ 756,000). The Indian students paid around CAD$ 7,000 (₹ 378,000) for being the first semester tuition fees plus CAD$ 10,000 for purchase of a GIC. This totaled to CAD$17,000 (₹ 918,000). With this new SDS program, the upfront tuition payment doubles to CAD$ 14,000. It means students would be making the payment of CAD$ 24,000 (CAD$14,000 + CAD$ 10,000). So, the total expense comes to around ₹ 1,296,000 against INR 918,000, an increase by ₹ 378,000.

Students whose parents are struggling with finances take a hit with this new change. Unequivocally, this new policy is better for the Government of Canada but may not bring happiness for some Indian students. Further, looking at the hawkish stance of the RBI in India it seems that the interest rate would go up whereby the educational bank loan would also become expensive in the months to come. In a nutshell, with this SDS program parents would have a double whammy of loan interest increases and the burden of additional payment of one semester tuition fee.

• A qualifying score of IELTS: As I do not have the official statistics about the median individual score of IELTS of the Indian students, I am presenting my assumptions.

If we were to believe that students wishing to study in Canada needed minimum 6.0 band in each module of the IELTS test, there would certainly be a massive amount of frustration among students. Over the decades, we have seen students slide by 0.5 band score at least in one of the individual modules, especially either in Writing section or Reading section.  Some students may manage to keep their nerve and win over this difficulty, but NOT all for sure. Consequently, students really need to prepare well for the IELTS test or they may face desperation and loss of the hard-earned money after paying for the test repeatedly.

Any new change either brings the luck or puts someone down: One man’s nightmare is another man’s dream. Ergo, some students will be caught in the crossfire of a silent scream.

Who will be reaping the harvest of SDS?

It goes without saying that British Council and IDP would be the greatest beneficiaries of this new change of the test score revision. Their numbers are already on the rise, and they could witness another 20% to 25% growth for Academic IELTS in the Indian market.