A leader in global education, Canada recently overtook the UK to rank third behind the US and Australia as a destination for international students. International students now make up nearly 20 percent of all students enrolled in post-secondary institutions in Canada, up from 7.2 percent in 2010. This group is often seen as an evolving solution to the country’s aging workforce. But the path to steady employment and citizenship for them is paved with complex immigration requirements and barriers to entry in many workforces, according to a report by RBC Economics and Thought Leadership. “For many, a Canadian education may not yield the desired return on investment,” the report says. He also revealed that Canada needs a more targeted strategy for recruiting and training students to fill gaps in the health care industry and other professions. International students’ path from the classroom to permanent residence is weakened by their disconnection from the labor market, such as when their degrees do not meet labor market needs, researchers have found. Canada’s immigration program changed in 2016, which gave Canadian education more weight in the points system for permanent residents. As a result, the report found that enrollment in smaller postsecondary programs, which are considered a fast track to immigration, has grown twice as fast as enrollment in other programs since 2016. “Canada needs college-educated students to address labor shortages across the economy. However, some students on short-cycle programs have a longer path to the labor market and permanent residence, and some may not have a path at all,” the report warns. The report’s researchers argue that adjusting the immigration option to favor international students with backgrounds in STEM, health care and the professions, and providing these students with more opportunities for work experience through their institutions, will greatly increase the chances that they will students remain in the country as workers. “Institutions are what mostly select people,” Iain Reeve, deputy director of immigration research at the Conference Board of Canada, said in the report. “And federal and provincial immigration programs are running on the sidelines saying, ‘how are we going to get some of these people to stay?’” Canada competes with many other countries to retain top international talent. The UK, US and Australia have already introduced measures to target STEM students to enter and stay in their countries. One of the report’s key recommendations includes investing in a wage subsidy program for international students working and studying in high-demand fields. along with facilitating their access to comprehensive work-based learning without the need for additional work permits. “The job market and international education are not yet well aligned and we are not fully benefiting from the true power of international students,” Martin Basiri, Co-Founder and CEO of online recruitment platform, ApplyBoard, said in the report. “With some adjustments to create the alignment, Canada can really benefit at scale.”
