

Students must first be accepted into Westminster Academy, and their enrollment fee must be paid in full. Westminster Academy encourages families with limited means to apply for assistance.
#Contact step up for students full#
It says other initiatives are underway such as Find Your Path, a one-stop online tool to help students map their education and career.Westminster Academy has established a Financial Assistance Program to assist Christian families who have a genuine financial need and are unable to afford the full cost of tuition. The ministry said it has slated $480 million in the StrongerBC: Future Ready Action Plan to prepare students for in-demand careers. "We recognize that the international education system in its current form is not working as well as it could," the ministry said in a statement to CBC. In an email to CBC, B.C.'s Ministry of Post-Secondary Education said it will put forward solutions to address concerns shared by international students this fall. Post-secondary institutions must step upįrancis says post-secondary institutions should be more transparent on how they spend international student tuition fees, and allocate funds to provide employment and career counselling for international students. "People say, let's try working in restaurants, it would be easier to get PR - and so now I am stuck with it," Acharya said, referring to being offered a supervisory role at the restaurant where he currently works. welcome decision to lift 20-hour work cap Integrity of immigration system at risk as international student numbers balloon, minister says."Students are coming here with very limited resources and they need to start working right away and some are even sending money back home to their family," she says.ĭeep Shah, who came to Canada in December 2018 to complete a postgraduate diploma in hotel management, says he had to juggle three jobs to support himself and send money to family in India.Īfter his father's passing in 2020, he had to become the sole provider for his family, says Shah.

She says about 75 per cent of jobs in Canada "are found through networks and references rather than from applying via job sites." Intention to work rather than studyĪccording to Francis's findings, many international students end up focusing more on work than school. They also don't have access to services like WorkBC, which helps job seekers improve their skills and connect with employers, Francis adds. As international students struggle to make ends meet, universities face crippling drop in enrolment.Support needed for international students struggling to make ends meet.
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While Francis believes it is easier for master's degree holders to get a better job than undergraduate international students, a lack of Canadian work experience and professional networks can be limiting. "They do not have the level of written or spoken English that employers are looking for," says Francis. This is especially true for undergraduate students who have come to Canada without prior experience. Lack of 'Canadian' experience and networksįrancis says most international students lack necessary soft skills like communication. "They invest so much, come with high expectations but end up in this cycle of working for retail, warehouse, fast food, which aren't even enough to help them meet their needs," Francis said.


With the number of study permit applications more than doubling since 2017 from about 313,000 to about 715,000 in 2022, according to data from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, Francis estimates international students' contribution to be much more today. In 2017, the most recent year for which data is available, international students contributed $22.3 billion to the Canadian economy and almost $4.7 billion to B.C. Santosh Acharya thinks there's demand for his homemade Nepalese food as more international students from Nepal make their way to Vancouver.
