Guardian Newpapaer Canada International Students
Vancouver SunBy Stuart Neatby and Bala YogeshMost international students planning to make a new life in Canada after their graduation are instead returning home in frustration due to confusion about immigration programs and a lack of coordination between provincial and federal governments, experts say.That is as federal immigration officials are increasingly declaring students from abroad to be the country’s preferred stream of immigrants.The number of international students studying in B.C. Each year has grown to over 136,000.
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More than 350,000 international students were enrolled in schools across Canada at the end of 2015.The of international students graduating in the country rose from 30,723 in 2010 to 53,142 students in 2014.According to a by the Canadian Bureau for International Education, 59 per cent of international students viewed the potential of permanent residency as a deciding factor in their decision to study in Canada. Another by the B.C. Council on Admissions and Transfer found that 63 per cent of international students in B.C.
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Intended to remain in Canada after graduation.But according to, between 2004 and 2013, only 25 per cent of international students actually gained permanent residency after their studies. Another by Statistics Canada found that those who gain permanent residency earn significantly less than Canadian-born graduates. One year after gaining residency, international graduates earned only slightly more than half of what their Canadian counterparts made.The federal government changed its skilled worker immigration selection program, known as express entry, last November to make it easier for international students to become permanent residents. The changes awarded more points to permanent residency applicants who had studied at Canadian post-secondary institutions, who had family in Canada, and whose English or French was at a high academic level, while lowering the amount of points for those who had received a job offer from a Canadian employer. “These young people are the cream of the crop in terms of future Canadians,” said federal Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada Ahmed Hussen in July, while speaking at in Halifax.“They have post-secondary education. They are young, they are proficient in one or both of our official languages, and often they have Canadian work experience.
So why wouldn’t we want to hang on to them?” he said.The federal government made more changes to the immigration system on Wednesday. Opportunities for young tech workersYeswanth Manivannan, a tech worker in Vancouver, is a model example of the kind of international student Canada wants to keep.Originally from India, he graduated from the University of Saskatchewan with a degree in computer engineering, adapting quickly to Canadian culture.
Shortly after graduation, he snagged a well-paying job in Vancouver with a U.S.-based tech giant. His skills are in high demand in B.C.’s tech sector, which is facing a shortage of trained workers.Manivannan plans to apply for permanent residency under express entry.
He appreciates the opportunities he has had in Canada and says he is happy to pay taxes now that he is in the workforce.“I’m actually grateful I got an opportunity to give back, to pay back this nation,” he said.But Manivannan also was pragmatic about his study choices. He considered studying physics but enrolled in computer engineering instead, betting that it would make him more employable.He says many of his friends from India, who were in the same program as he was, have not been so lucky.“I do have a lot of friends who came here with the same dreams as me, excelling in whatever they were good at.
They had to go back. That is definitely sad,” he said.Some of Manivannan’s fellow students did not find the opportunities they needed after graduation, and had to return home. They had difficulty navigating the immigration system, he said, and did not land the jobs that would allow them to pay back the high cost of their education.
Barriers and confusionKelly Toughill, a journalist and accredited immigration consultant based in Halifax who runs a website that helps provide, says there is a high degree of confusion about immigration programs.International students often face difficulty in navigating the rules for programs such as express entry.“The rules change. Johnston believes that navigating immigration programs like express entry is becoming easier.“The routes to become a permanent resident have much improved,” she said. Private colleges may be adding to confusionSome experts believe that the growth of private colleges has also complicated the situation.There are 227 private colleges, training and language institutes on the list of B.C.’s designated learning institutions.A commissioned by the B.C. Although Vancouver Film School, a private college with a good reputation in the movie industry, informed him there were no guarantees about a work permit upon completion of his program, he decided to enrol anyway. He paid $35,000 in tuition for the one-year program after receiving some financial assistance from the college and took out a bank loan in India.“I knew it would be a risky process,” said the 23-year-old student.
“This is the right point to take a risk in life.”Kumar plans to apply for his post-graduate work permit and believes that his skills in animation are in in Vancouver. Among earlier graduates of his program, some received a work permit, but several were rejected.Colin Phillips, operations manager for the Vancouver Institute of Media Arts, another private college focusing on the film industry, said the inconsistency has impacted both colleges and the industry.“For the cohort who graduated in March 2017, some of our students have still been successful in getting work permits through the (post-graduate work permit program), but we’ve also heard of more rejections than for previous groups,” Phillips said. Some students, however, simply see the pull of opportunity in other countries. Rahul Kumar, an Indian international student who received his MBA from York University in Toronto, started a management consultancy company shortly after graduating. His company, EndGate Global, currently has 10 employees, with one based in Mississauga, Ont., and the other nine in India. Although he had initially planned to stay in Canada, Kumar left the country last fall.In a phone interview from India, Kumar said that Toronto’s harsh winters and the separation from his family played a role in his decision to leave. But he says the biggest reason involved the culture of Canada’s business community, which he described as “risk averse” and unconcerned about “going global.”“I’m one of those people who wants to live in an aggressive professional environment,” he said.Bala Yogesh and Stuart Neatby are 2017 recipients of the Langara College Read-Mercer Journalism Fellowship.
This series was produced through the Fellowship.
UPDATE: Since first reporting on this story, other media outlets here and abroad have used Tina Liu's images without her permission and out of context. As a result, she has been harassed. For that reason, we've decided to blur her photos.Tina Liu, 16, moved to Toronto a year ago from China to attend high school as an international student. But soon after, she started experiencing problems with her host family and custodian.After living with her hosts for seven months, she told them she wanted to be closer to her Markham, Ont., school. After that, Tina said the family stopped calling her down for dinner, and a few times, she went to bed hungry.When Tina wasn't in class, she spent most of her time alone in her room, feeling isolated and lonely. 'So many nights, I cried under my blanket.'
.When she suffered a health emergency in September, she couldn't get a hold of her custodian and only reached him after nine calls and more than five hours later. 'He said he was at a party and didn't hear the phone ring.' The next day, Tina said her custodian took her to the hospital where she was diagnosed with pneumonia.Hundreds of thousands of international students are here from around the world, many even younger than Tina, and largely fending for themselves in a new country without adequate support from school boards, provincial governments and the federal government, industry experts say. And now settlement agencies, student recruiters and host family companies are urging these bodies to regulate the industry. Moy Wong-Tam runs the Centre for Immigrant and Community Services in Scarborough, Ont.
She said her settlement agency is hearing more stories of Chinese international students struggling to adjust in Canada. (Lisa Xing/CBC) Custodians and host familiesWhen minors arrive in Canada, they have two main points of contact — a host family or homestay, and a custodian, who is a delegate appointed by the parents to check in on their children and help them in case of any emergencies.But Wong-Tam, whose settlement agency provided services to 20,000 newcomers in 2016, about 300 of whom were international students, said the industry supporting temporary residents is largely unregulated. Furthermore, she told CBC News it's unlikely homestay families and custodians can replace a student's parents, particularly when there's money to be made from the system.The students' families typically pay between $950 and $1,300 a month to the homestay family for meals and a place to live, and between $1,000 and $2,500 a year to the custodian, depending on the range of services he or she offers. Tina Liu came from Tianjin, China, to study in early 2017.
(Submitted by Tina Liu) 'I didn't want to worry my mom'Without regulation, though, the settlement agency said custodians can charge a lot more and do a lot less than promised as it turned out for Tina.Her parents paid $16,000, about six times the average, for the so-called 'super-custodian' package to guarantee her custodian would give her extra attention, which didn't occur.For the two hospital trips, Tina's custodian charged her $300, telling her 'the rule is whenever he takes me to the hospital, I will be charged by trips and distance.' 'I was angry,' she said. 'But, I didn't want to worry my mom.
I can't force my custodian to fulfil his responsibilities, so I knew I needed to become more independent.' Tina told CBC News that's why she kept many details of her struggles from her parents and preferred to get permission to speak from her new custodian. 'Parents want a lot'Tina's story doesn't surprise George Liu, founder of Sino-Canada International, a Markham company that recruits students from China and finds host families and custodians for them. He is a custodian to about 10 students. George Liu, a custodian himself, founded a Markham, Ont., company that pairs students with host families and custodians. (Lisa Xing/CBC)He said one teenage Chinese student whose custodian and homestay family didn't set any rules for her got pregnant. She had an abortion.
Liu said the custodian didn't feel it was necessary to tell her parents until Liu insisted. In another case, a teenage girl was diagnosed with depression shortly after arriving and had to return to China for treatment, forfeiting her tuition for the rest of the year.However, Liu acknowledged it's tough for a custodian in Canada to provide the attention the students would otherwise receive from their families back home.' Parents want a lot from our side, but it's a cost issue, money issue. We can't do that much,' he said. 'In China, kids are spoiled by parents, grandparents. They hope when kids come to Canada they have another babysitter, but it's not possible.' Even so, Liu said the Canadian government should implement stricter regulations on custodians and homestays because the number of international students has surged by 51 per cent since 2007.
As of 2016, there were more than 400,000 international students studying in Canada, one-third of whom are from China. School boards, firms have their own rulesCurrently, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) requires parents of foreign students under 18 to sign a custodianship declaration form. The federal government's only stipulation is 'a custodian is a responsible adult (Canadian citizen or a permanent resident) who takes care of and supports the child.' School boards or companies that help families find a custodian have their own rules, including criminal background checks and mandatory insurance. Some, like the York Catholic District School Board, require that the guardian sign an affidavit for his or her role in the student's welfare and a separate agreement accepting responsibility for any 'inappropriate behaviour' from the student.Alex Mazzucco, program co-ordinator of international education at the Toronto Catholic District School Board, said the students sometimes bring up issues to the board, which can get parents involved, but there's no way to take a complaint further with the federal government.' There's no mechanisms with IRCC where you can file a complaint where they'll respond,' he said. 'We've filed complaints but have not received any response.'
Alex Mazzucco, with the Toronto Catholic District School Board, wants the federal government to regulate the international student industry. (Lisa Xing/CBC)Culturally, students often don't report issues to the school board or even their parents, said Liu.' Being polite, not speaking up, it's part of Chinese culture,' he said.
Guardian Newspaper Canada International Students 2017
'They don't want to fight with others. When something happens, they first think about themselves. 'Did I do something wrong?' 'CBC News contacted both the public and Catholic school boards for Toronto, Peel and York Region. The York Region school boards did not respond to a request for an interview.The Toronto District School Board said its guidance counsellors offer help to newcomers, but when pressed about how specific the help was to the international students, Smita Sengupta, the senior manager of international programs said, 'We don't have youth counsellors or workers that are dedicated to international students.' She said she would like to see more culturally appropriate staff in schools that are dedicated to the students and youth workers who are familiar with their cultures and languages.When CBC News asked why the visa students' tuition didn't go toward creating these positions, Sengupta said it was a 'decision the board has to make.' She added the board is working on a plan to strengthen its support for visa students that will address mental health and extra staffing.
If approved, it will be in place in September. Filling the seatsCICS's Wong-Tam said institutions have a moral obligation to care for the underage students, particularly since 'classrooms need international students to fill the seats.'
An international high school student pays an average of $14,000 in tuition a year, according to Greater Toronto Area school boards' websites. Shows spending associated with international students in 2014, including their visiting families and friends, amounted to $11.4 billion a year, contributed $9.3 billion to Canada's GDP and helped sustain 123,000 jobs.said international students contribute more than $4 billion to the province's economy annually, generating more than 30,000 jobs. Tina said her first year in Canada has been a struggle but she doesn't want to disappoint her parents. (Submitted by Tina Liu)With this much money coming in, Wong-Tam is calling on the institutions to have a dialogue.'
I know tragedies happen to all Canadians but international students are so much more vulnerable,' she said. 'They need a little more help since they're paying more tuition.' In an email to CBC News, IRCC said: 'Parents or legal guardians are ultimately best placed to select the custodian of their child and to determine whether the custodian is fulfilling the duties entrusted to them.' Liu said there's little the parents can do from so far away, so the institutions bringing them in should take more responsibility, including the provincial government, which oversees the school boards.Ontario's Ministry of Education told CBC News in a statement: 'If a school board chooses to have homestay programs, they are responsible for monitoring homestay families' compliance with applicable requirements (i.e. Insurance, safety standards, etc.).'
Wong-Tam, Liu and another homestay company that CBC News interviewed said all the parties need to take responsibility. A bright futureMeanwhile, students like Tina maintain they fend for themselves. She found a new homestay in Markham, where her host parents treat her like family. She also has a new custodian and said she hopes the new person will do a better job than the last one.
Meanwhile, her joy at arriving in a new country has 'subsided.' 'I miss home. I want to go home all the time, but I can't tell my parents,' she said. 'I don't want them to worry about me.
They sent me here to study, to have a bright future. I'm not going to let them down.'