Canada has lesson to learn from Australia in foreign student policy
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| Graph showing international students at Melbourne University by region of origin as well as the top five countries (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
Friday, Aug. 24, 2012
Canada is finally moving toward a smart, two-step immigration policy, like Australia and others have, that will recruit talent through a targeting policy of foreign student education.
Australia’s success has been widely disseminated and last week a blue-ribbon federal task force in Canada released a report that would emulate its policy. The number of foreign students allowed entry into Canadian institutions should nearly double in a decade and those who graduate from Canadian institutions should be eligible to remain, rather than having to return home and wait years to get in.
Most foreign students in Canada get their degrees and never come back. Most Australians apply to remain and the majority stay.
The next step will be consultations across the country and the new policy will likely become part of the reforms being developed by Immigration Minister Jason Kenney.
Most foreign students in Canada get their degrees and never come back. Most Australians apply to remain and the majority stay
Australia currently has 256,087 international students, mostly post-secondary, slightly ahead of Canada’s 239,130. The Canadian task force recommends that this be increased to 450,000 in a decade without taking places from Canadians.
Canadian universities and other educational institutions have catered to this market but Australia has outclassed Canada’s efforts by pooling their marketing efforts.
Ottawa should emulate the [external] studyinaustralia.gov.au website, where anyone can research educational opportunities, by courses, majors, institutions, regions, cities. Its “wizard” feature allows users to deep-dive into concrete information about housing, scholarships, fees, tuition and living expenses. In Canada, the [external] studyincanada.com website offers incomplete information. A cursory review of university websites found that fees and other information were unavailable.
Australia charges more than Canadian institutions because along with graduation comes immigration eligibility, providing criteria are met. Another benefit of the Australian method is that outcomes for immigrants are far superior than immigrant outcomes in Canada, where unemployment among so-called university-educated immigrants is four times’ higher than for Canadians with university degrees.
Canada needs this tool to attract skilled and educated workers who will immediately be successful in the country because they have assimilated and have bona fide credentials.
And Canada can charge more too:
– The University of Melbourne charges bachelor of commerce international students $32,700 annually compared with $26,900 at the University of Toronto, $25,400 University of Alberta and $25,300 for UBC.
– Melbourne charges international students studying engineering $33,000 a year compared with $30,400 at U of T and $23,300 at U of Alberta.
– Medical school for international students in Australia is more than $55,000 a year and $36,500 at University of Toronto, according to its website.
Worse yet, there are inadequate places for Canadians at Canadian medical schools and the result is that hundreds of Canadians go to Australian medical schools, and virtually all stay, according to University of Melbourne Professor and immigration specialist Lesleyanne Hawthorne.
(This points out another needed immigration reform. As Canadians go abroad to become doctors because foreigners have taken their places, foreigners who study here cannot stay to practice medicine because they must go home and re-apply. No foreign credentials, Australian or even American, are recognized by Canada’s protectionist medical profession.)
“Canadians who graduate from Australian medical schools are immediately licensed and get residencies. We are keeping 92% of our Canadian medical students. Now dental students from Canada are coming to Australia in large numbers for the same reasons,” said Ms. Hawthorne at a recent conference into immigration at the University of Calgary.
By offering eligibility with an education, universities here can up their fees substantially, and provide more spaces for Canadians.
The Australian system also picks and chooses among international students, selecting those with credentials that are in demand and rejecting those who have not adjusted to the culture or who have not behaved properly. Since 1999, some 630,000 foreign students have been allowed to immigrate in Australia and have achieved superior outcomes compared with immigrants who have never lived or studied there first.
“By 2006, at a time of sustained economic boom, labor market participation rates were strong in Australia for former international students. Ninety-five percent were employed, compared with 93 percent of those recruited offshore — a far more positive level of engagement than 1999-2000 arrivals (62 percent),” said an article about the Australian immigration experience published a few years ago in Canada’s Policy Options.
However, one caution is that if Canada hurtles headlong into doubling foreign student populations governments must be wary of the proliferation of private-school rackets offering diplomas as a means of gaining entry for unacceptable, unqualified persons.
“Serious abuses in Australia were uncovered, at a time when vocational private-sector quality assurance mechanisms were poorly developed,” said the Canadian report. “By May 2009, international student enrolments in vocational education and training were growing by 50 percent per year, compared with just 1 percent in the tertiary sector. There was a growing concern that ‘widespread rackets among private trade colleges were…undermin[ing] Australia’s education, immigration and employment systems.’”
Such hazards can be averted by putting safeguards in place to monitor providers of “education” to foreigners. If not, a proliferation of schools will result, handing out worthless diplomas and credentials as backdoor entries into Canada.
http://www.financialpost.com/m/wp/diane-francis/blog.html?b=opinion.financialpost.com/2012/08/24/canada-has-lesson-to-learn-from-australia-in-foreign-student-policy
Immigrants, young buyers to buoy home sales, CIBC says
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| English: Kings Grove, Longniddry This residential area was built during the early 1970s. At that time, the post-war "Baby Boomers" had entered the housing market, creating a big demand for accommodation within easy commuting distance of Edinburgh. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
CBC News Posted: Aug 23, 2012 12:55 PM ET
A large bubble of people in their prime home-buying years, coupled with an influx of immigrants, is poised to support Canada's housing market for the next decade, a major bank economist said Thursday.
Benjamin Tal of CIBC put out a report on Thursday in which he argued that Canada's population demographics are working in favour of the country's housing market.
Canada is facing a well-documented demographic pinch over the coming years, as Baby Boomers retire and seek to cash out their homes to finance their retirement. Experts have gotten increasingly concerned on the impact this boomer bulge will have on the job market and the housing market.
But beneath the numbers, Tal sees some reasons for optimism. Although the 55- to 74-year-old age group will see the largest population increase in the next decade, the second-largest will come in the 25-44 group. That's the prime home-buying demographic, with recent research suggesting 18 per cent of that group buys a home in any given year.
"In other words, the group that is most likely to buy a house will grow faster in the coming decade," Tal said.
Canada is forecast to see a decrease in the 45-54 demographic, but historically, that group represents a very small percentage of home buyers as people are typically late career with established families, making them less likely to move.
Down the line, there's a concerning 170,000 decrease expected in the number of Canadians under 25. But the "low propensity to buy among this age group will limit the damage" at least until 2022 and beyond, Tal said.
REAL ESTATEMapping average home prices across Canada
Secondly, immigration will act as a key supporter for real estate demand. Most of the growth in population is now due to immigration, Tal writes, and that bodes well for the housing market over the next decade.
While immigrants often face many hurdles integrating into society while finding a home and employment upon first arriving in Canada, the numbers show a significant uptick in home ownership after three years.
Indeed, "after ten years in Canada the propensity among immigrants to own a house is higher than among native-born Canadians," Tal writes.
In the short term, Tal agrees with the consensus of economists who expect some sort of modest contraction in the housing market, after years of outsized gains fueled largely by low borrowing rates. But longer term, the particulars of Canada's population should help keep the real estate market sustainable.
"While housing market activity is projected to soften in the near-term, the good news is that any adjustment will not be aggravated by negative demographic forces," Tal says.
"At least for the next decade, demographic forces will be strong enough to mitigate the damage and probably shorten the duration of the upcoming market adjustment."
Canada’s new immigration rules put premium on young people
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| Happy Canada Day (Photo credit: Anirudh Koul) |
BILL CURRY
OTTAWA — The Globe and Mail
New immigration rules will target workers aged 18 to 35 as the Conservative government provides the clearest sense yet of how Canada will rely on young immigrants to soften the fiscal pain of a demographic crunch.
The federal regulations reveal a sweeping overhaul of the points system used by Canada for approving foreign worker applications.
The new points grid provides details that are in line with previous government pledges to gear the immigration system toward younger workers with strong language skills in English or French who already have a job lined up in Canada.
Under new rules that will take effect next year, workers aged 47 and over will receive no points for age, compared with 12 for those between 18 and 35, the most coveted age group under the Federal Skilled Worker Class of immigrants.
The available points for applicants decreases by one for each year above 35.
The government says the change, announced over the weekend, is based on clear evidence that older immigrants are much less likely to succeed in the work force, although that position is not without its critics who say that the government points system should be more flexible.
Driving the change is the concern that the ratio of working-age Canadians to retirees is shifting dramatically.
“An aging population … represents a significant policy challenge for Canada,” a federal analysis of the changes says. “The immigration of young people able to work at relatively high wages for a number of years can help lessen the consequences of this phenomenon.”
Independent research supports the government’s claims that younger immigrants perform better financially, but some say there shouldn’t be hard and fast rules.
“The next Frank Stronach could be 38 years old, and then what do we do?” said Ratna Omidvar, president of the immigration-focused Maytree Foundation and board chair of the Toronto Region Immigrant and Employment Council. “I think a little less rigidity would be preferable.”
On language, the new rules will give significantly more points to applicants who have strong language skills in either English or French, but points for speaking both official languages will be cut in half from eight to four.
Some immigration experts say this could, at least temporarily, have the effect of curbing immigration from regions with relatively poor average English or French skills like China and South Asia. A spokesperson for Immigration Minister Jason Kenney rejected such theories as “innapropriate.”
In addition to changing the Federal Skilled Worker Class, the new regulations also create a new Federal Skilled Trades Class and updates the Canadian Experience Class, which was created by the Conservative government in 2008.
Over all, the changes aim to help employers bring in the workers they need and make it easier for temporary workers to apply for citizenship while in Canada. The rules also decrease the points for work experience outside of Canada.
Citizenship and Immigration has posted an extensive rationale for the changes in the Canada Gazette, citing numerous academic studies to support specific measures.
One of the cited researchers, McMaster University economics professor Arthur Sweetman, who co-authored a paper called “Immigrant Earnings: Age At Immigration Matters,” says the federal age rules are clearly supported by data.
“It makes a lot of sense,” he said. “Immigrants who arrive later in life – on average – have a lot more difficulties in the labour market.”
However, on the broader objectives of the federal rules, Dr. Sweetman noted that the government discusses how they will benefit employers and new immigrants, but is silent on their potential impact on existing Canadian workers.
“If you were going to design an immigration system that was going to help employers keep wages low, this is pretty close to what you’d want,” he said, noting that it will be important to ensure employers are really making an effort to find Canadian workers before turning to the immigration system.
NDP immigration critic Jinny Sims said the government’s approach to changing demographics seems poorly thought out. She said that listing workers over 35 as “too old” to come to Canada seems at odds with the government’s plans to have Canadians work until 67 before qualifying for Old Age Security.
“It just doesn’t make any sense,” she said.
Chinese continue to seek residency overseas
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| English: The Great Wall of China, near Beijing in July 2006. This is a section of Mutianyu. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
By Cheng Guangjin in Beijing and Li Xiang in Paris (China Daily)
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Despite tightening immigration rules in many destinations popular with Chinese immigrants, the number of applicants — who have growing wealth and a desire to live elsewhere — continues to rise.
This year it has become even more difficult for many Chinese citizens to realize their immigration dreams, as most of their favorite destinations are adjusting immigration rules with higher qualification requirements and fewer openings.
Canada announced in late June that it would temporarily suspend new applications to the Federal Skilled Worker Program and Federal Immigrant Investor Program, effective on July 1. The government is expected to accept applications again in January.
Meanwhile, Quebec, a province of eastern Canada, has limited the maximum number of investor applications between March 21, 2012, and March 31, 2013, to 2,700.
"This has been a heavy blow to new applicants, applicants being processed and the immigration intermediaries in China like ours," said Ding Wei, director of the Canadian immigration department at JJL Overseas Education, a Beijing-based education and immigration intermediary.
According to Ding, many ongoing application cases in his company have stalled.
"Applicants being processed have to wait longer, with a higher chance of being turned down," Ding told China Daily.
Canada is not alone in having new immigration rules.
Australia, for which China is the biggest source of immigrants, on July 1 introduced a new Skilled Migrant Selection Model, one of the biggest changes to the Australian immigration system in years.
The new system will be less convenient for prospective immigrants to Australia. They will have to wait probably about six months to find out if they are allowed to make an application.
According to Ma Jing, who is in charge of the Australian immigration department at JJL, the new model has higher requirements, including education, language ability and business experience.
Because more detailed rules have yet to come out, "now is a transition period with fewer new applicants to Australia", Ma said.
However, Ma is optimistic about a continued increase in the number of new applicants in the future.
"Generally speaking, it has become more and more difficult to move to other countries with higher requirements, including investments, but Chinese people's wealth is also on the rise," Ma said.
Ding said that people may turn to other countries such as the United States and some European countries instead of Canada, since not all news is bad news.
The US on Aug 14 directed young illegal immigrants to fill out new forms and pay $465 if they wanted to apply under a new program that will let them avoid deportation and obtain a US work permit.
Earlier this month, the US Congress agreed in principle to a three-year reauthorization of the EB-5 Regional Center Program, which grants residency permits to foreign investors, a program that is due to expire in September.
Ding is not surprised: "The US knows well the benefits to the development of its regional economy and employment as a result of Chinese investors."
In Europe, at the French Senate's Judicial Committee hearing on July 24, French Interior Minister Manuel Valls signaled that the new Socialist government of President Francois Hollande intended to make changes to French immigration law.
Valls' plans would make it easier for foreign students to work in France after their graduation, said Daniel Kahn, founding partner of French law firm Kahn & Associes in Paris.
Furthermore, if other measures are made regarding the residence and work permit authorization, the lives of foreign employees in France will be more stable, and they will be encouraged to settle in France for good, Kahn said.
Kahn noted that the French government recognizes that non-EU students who have graduated from French universities are an asset to the French economy.
"All companies established in France will benefit from this change in French immigration law," he said.
Many Chinese students are studying in France. Some of them graduated from the most famous French business, commercial and engineering schools and institutes of political science.
"They speak two or three languages and have a Sino-French cultural background," said Kahn.
"The new immigration policy should enable many of them to find suitable and interesting positions in French companies and obtain the appropriate work permit."
No matter how the rules are changed, people's wish to live elsewhere simply won't fade.
Ma said that many of her clients have children who study abroad.
"They feel it's a pity if their children spend years studying in a foreign country without obtaining citizenship there. So they apply for immigration, which can also help their children," Ma said.
"People also want to have a life with less pressure and to enjoy a better pension when they grow old after emigrating to countries like Australia," Ma said.
As for businessmen who travel around the world from time to time, a foreign passport can mean less time waiting for a visa, compared with a Chinese passport, Ma said.
Yao Lei, 29, a senior system administrator on global infrastructure in the IT industry at a US company in Beijing, will soon join the middle-class force with a good salary.
But he has found new momentum for life after making a decision to emigrate to the US.
He plans to acquire permanent residence under the EB-1A category, which is for immigrants who can demonstrate extraordinary ability, with the help of his US-based company. He has found that his specialty is increasingly in demand, even in the US.
"I think I can get a higher salary, a life with less pressure and easier access to educational opportunities for my children in the future," Yao said.
Contact the writers at chengguangjin@chinadaily.com.cn and lixiang@chinadaily.com.cn
New immigration system will award more points for language, fewer for work abroad
Nicholas Keung
Immigration Reporter
Ottawa is revamping the point grid it has used for the past 10 years to judge skilled-immigrant applications. The proposed revisions, to go into effect next January, will put more emphasis on language skills and professional credentials equivalent to Canada’s — while de-emphasizing work experience abroad.
This would be the first major overhaul of the immigration point grid system since 2002, when the Liberal government of the day lowered the passing mark and jiggled minor point allocations.
Under amendments to the federal skilled-worker program published Friday, language proficiency — a strong indicator of how well new immigrants do economically — will become the most important factor in whether applicants are approved, worth a maximum of 28 points, up from 24.
The total “passing” mark will remain at 67, but the revised grid will favour younger immigrants by awarding a maximum of 12 points for applicants in the 18-35 age bracket. Applicants over 46 would get 0 points.
Citizenship and Immigration Canada is also proposing to reduce the total number of points given for work experience from 21 to 15, and increase the years of experience required to achieve full points from four years to six.
“These changes will reflect the relative value Canadian employers place on foreign work experience, and redirect points to language and age factors, which are better indicators of success,” said the government statement. .
“Education points would be awarded based on the equivalent Canadian educational credential and points would be redistributed in recognition of the credential’s relevance in the Canadian labour market.”
Applicants with a background in a regulated occupation (medicine or accounting, for example) must also submit to a foreign educational credential assessment by the relevant professional body to establish that a credential earned abroad is equivalent to Canadian requirements.
To address a perpetual labour shortage in the construction industry, Ottawa has also proposed creating a new federal skilled-trades class, which would also be open to people working in natural resources or agriculture production, as well as chefs, cooks, bakers and butchers.
But such applicants need to meet other criteria as well, including having an offer of employment or a provincial certificate of qualification; language proficiency; and 24 months of work experience in the same skilled trade over the past five years.
Changes are also contemplated to the Canadian Experience Class, which allows highly-skilled foreign nationals with Canadian work experience, or graduates from a Canadian university, to apply for permanent residency.
The government is proposing to reduce the work experience required from the current 24 months to 12, over the preceding three years.
Details of Revised Federal Skilled Worker Program Released
osted on August 19, 2012
Skilled tradespersons in eligible vocations like construction work will be able to apply for Canadian permanent residence under the new Federal Skilled Trades Program (FSTP) (Paul Keheler)
Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) unveiled information on Friday about the new Federal Skilled Worker Program (FSWP) that will be launched in the new year.
The revised program will have more demanding language requirements, more selective credential assessment, and will give preference to Canadian work experience over foreign work experience, among other changes.
CIC placed a temporary freeze on the acceptance of new applications for the FSWP on July 1st to give the immigration department time to instate change that it said were needed to address shortcomings in the program.
The following are the major changes to the FSWP that were announced in Friday’s release:
Increasing the maximum points awarded for proficiency in an official language, from 16 to 24 points
Awarding a maximum of 12 points to applicants aged 19 to 35, and decreasing the points awarded until age 46
Reducing the maximum number of points awarded for foreign work experience from 21 to 15
Eliminating points awarded for spousal education and awarding points for spousal language proficiency instead
Awarding a maximum of 10 points for Canadian work experience
Awarding points for foreign education credentials based on an assessment of the foreign credential’s equivalent value in Canada as assessed by an organization that is designated to provide credential assessment and authentication
New Federal Skilled Trades Worker Program
In addition to the changes to the FSWP, CIC also announced the details of a new Federal Skilled Trades Program (FSTP) that will be open to tradespersons skilled in eligible trade occupations.
The requirements announced for the FSTP are:
An offer of employment of a duration of least one year from up to two Canadian employers or a Certificate of Qualification from a provincial or territorial Apprenticeship Authority.
Proficiency in an official language
At least two years of work experience in an eligible skilled trade in the last five years
Required qualifications in the skill trade as described by the National Occupational Classification (NOC)
Changes to the Canadian Experience Class
As forecasted by CIC earlier in the year, the Canadian work experience required to qualify for the Canadian Experience Class (CEC) program will be reduced from 24 months to 12 months, to allow temporary foreign workers in Canada to more quickly qualify for Canadian permanent residence status.
Source: http://www.cicsnews.com/?cat=331
Is the Canadian economy in trouble?
By Kevin Press, BrighterLife.ca
June 20, 2012 Topics: Today's economy Comments (24)
“Conditions in the international financial system are fragile.” That is how the Bank of Canada chose to begin its latest Financial System Review, released on June 14. The report goes on to note that our domestic financial system “continues to be robust.” But that good news comes despite a host of risks to the system and to the Canadian economy, including the eurozone sovereign debt crisis, a slowdown in other advanced economies and potential trouble in the Canadian residential real estate market. Consistent with December’s report, the Bank says the risks facing the Canadian financial system are “high.”
I was in to see Sadiq Adatia, chief investment officer of Sun Life Global Investments, last week so I asked him what he thinks about the outlook for Canada. He wasn’t optimistic. After talking about his confidence in the U.S. recovery, he told me: “Canada is turning a corner too, but in the opposite direction.” We may not see gross domestic product growth above 2% this year.
Adatia sees five problems:
Household debt. “We’ve had a great run in our markets, fuelled by consumer spending,” Adatia told me. “Consumers have added a ton of debt to their balance sheets.” Indeed, we learned on June 15 that Canada’s household credit market debt (consumer credit, mortgage and loan debt), measured as a percentage of personal disposable income reached 152% in the first quarter of this year. That’s a new record. Actual borrowing has slowed, but income has too. According to the Bank of Montreal (BMO), the percentage of Canadian households with debt-service ratios above 40% of income – a level considered to be vulnerable by lenders – has risen over 6%. That’s “slightly above the past decade norm,” reports BMO.
Housing prices. Adatia thinks a double-digit drop in prices is possible. “We think there’s going to be a pullback across the board,” he said. “Some regions may be hit harder than others, but I think a 5%-to-15% drop is definitely in the cards.” That may be a conservative call. Across Canada, home prices are up 12% relative to where they were before the most recent recession.
Global factors. No surprise here: There’s trouble in Europe, a slowdown in China and the U.S. recovery (while it gives Adatia reason for optimism) remains vulnerable to global economic factors. These are all potential threats to Canada. By the way, Adatia does not believe there will be a hard landing in China.
Rising interest rates (eventually). Adatia doesn’t expect the Bank of Canada to move on rates this year, but they may start to come up in 2013: “Until we see a better resolution in the eurozone and a stronger U.S. economy, the Bank of Canada is not going to jump out too far ahead, particularly given that the U.S. Federal Reserve has already said it’s not going to raise rates until 2014.” When it happens, higher rates will dampen spending by a lot of highly indebted households.
Unemployment. “We’re probably going to see unemployment move up,” said Adatia. “I’m not convinced the employment picture is really as strong as it looks right now.” The four points listed above could each contribute to job losses.
Are we headed down a path similar to the one Americans took toward the end of the last decade? “These are the same things that were going on in the U.S. economy before it faltered,” Adatia told me. “We’re probably where the U.S. was a few years back.” Meanwhile, the U.S. housing market is showing signs of stabilization and according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Americans have slashed their debt by about $100 billion since the fourth quarter of 2011.
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Canadian universities bridge foreign student tuition gap to attract thousands of Brazilian students
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| English: The National Institute for Nanotechnology on the north campus of the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
OTTAWA — The Globe and Mail
Thousands of Brazilian students will fill the halls of Canadian universities over the next four school years as part of the rising South American country’s project to send vast numbers around the world to study science.
For Canadian universities, it’s a chance to add bright recruits from a country with a growing middle class, in the hope that increased research and academic links will continue long past the four years of the scholarship program. But it will also mark a major expansion of ties with an emerging nation that Canada has struggled to bring closer.
Up to 12,000 students will go to Canadian universities and colleges under Brazil’s Science Without Borders scholarship program, that country’s ambitious effort to send 100,000 students to study abroad. In Canada, it is being led not by governments, but by universities, especially a group of graduate research schools that have seized the Brazilian offer.
That means the addition of roughly 3,000 Brazilian students to Canadian schools for a year, in each of the next for years. But the real point is to provide a kick-start that will see more come even when the program ends.
“I think at this point we have less than 500 Brazilian students in Canada,” said Paul Davidson, president of the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada. “This is an opportunity to build that quickly.”
It is also a chance to build ties to a country whose fast-growing economy is already seventh-largest in the world, and is expected to be in the top five by the end of the decade. Canada’s efforts to increase trade ties have often seemed sluggish.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper visited Brazil last August, in an effort to foster deeper connections, and underlined foreign-student programs as a means. His government has also placed emphasis on recruiting students from countries like India and China, to spur the economy and deepen ties.
“How do you create alignments and collaboration between countries these days?” said Britta Baron, the vice-provost at the University of Alberta responsible for international programs. “Not through pompous diplomatic agreements but through person-to-person interaction on a high level such as science and knowledge. You’re going to end up here with thousands of young Brazilians. They will, in their later life, buy Canadian, act Canadian, work with Canada.”
Marcelo Salviano, a neuroscience PhD student from the University of Brasilia on a one-year exchange at Dalhousie University in Halifax, where he’s studying the impact of environmental factors on Alzheimer’s disease, said he thinks Brazilian students who want an international education will see Canada as a good place to go.
“It is a great experience. It allows you to know other labs, with resources you don’t have in your home country,” he said. Learning English at the same time helps, too. “In the science world, everybody has to write in English, so that’s a great opportunity.”
Canada, he added, “is known as a sort of international country that accepts the differences in culture very well. I didn’t have any kind of racism,” he said. The weather? “Everybody was saying, watch out in January and February, you will die,” he said, laughing. “I got good [winter]clothes and I survived.”
The 3,000 additional students, out of a Canadian student body of about one million, shouldn’t create a shortage of spots in Canadian universities, Mr. Davidson said, as aging populations are leaving schools in some regions with vacancies.
For a while, it seemed likely that Canada would miss out on the Brazilian program. Brazil’s government has set a condition that the students must pay domestic fees, not the higher ones of international students – leaving the question of who would make up the difference. In Ontario, for example, a university student pays about $5,000 in tuition, while foreign students pay two or three times that sum.
Universities didn’t want to discount the difference, and federal and provincial governments did not appear willing to foot the bill. But in the end, Brazil’s government did agree to pay the difference, although for undergraduate students only. Universities will have to decide whether they’ll pay the difference to attract graduate students, Mr. Davidson said.
That could be a to-be-negotiated hurdle, since Brazil is likely to insist on some proportion of graduate students among the 12,000.
But four Canadian universities already have offered to discount the fees for graduate students – a consortium dubbed CALDO including the University of Alberta, Laval, Dalhousie and the University of Ottawa, which has taken the lead in negotiating links with Brazil. They will take 2,840 students, with doctoral students making up the biggest proportion, said Ms. Baron, who spearheaded the creation of the group.
It will bring talented students here, create research links and open opportunities for Canadian students in Brazil, she said – and Canada can gain by respecting what Brazil wants out of it. “The Brazilian side doesn’t want to just shovel people across borders,” Ms. Baron said. “They want to build a younger generation that is much more world-wise and much more innovation-aware. And they want to build lasting partnerships.”
Governor-General courts Brazil to lure students to Canada
OTTAWA — The Canadian Press
Governor-General David Johnston is leading a group of 30 university presidents to Brazil — the biggest such delegation ever sent abroad to promote the benefits of Canadian education.
They will travel to Brasilia, Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo to meet academics and business leaders in the hope of attracting Brazilian students to Canada, and forging academic partnerships with Brazilian researchers.
Why Brazil? Because Brazil beckons.
Students there have ample new funding to study abroad. Canadian universities are thirsty for foreign students. And research interests at Brazilian universities complement many of the going concerns in Canada, Mr. Johnston said in an interview.
“We have seen a very happy strengthening of relationships between Canada and Brazil, especially over the last three or four years,” he said before leaving on the 10-day trip that begins Sunday.
Still, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has just returned from a visit to Colombia, where his dealings with some of South America's emerging powers were prickly.
Canada and the United States blocked an agreement at the Summit of the Americas to bring Cuba into the organization. That overrode support for Cuba from Brazil, Argentina, Colombia and others.
But the trade disputes that for years clouded the Canada-Brazil relationship are now far in the past and Canadian business has a keen eye trained on the burgeoning middle class of the Latin American powerhouse.
“From a strategic importance, it would rank with the top three or four countries in the world, I think, in terms of Canadian interests,” the Governor General said.
For Mr. Johnston, the trip is a chance to exercise what he calls the diplomacy of knowledge — the shared academic expertise that will lead to stronger trade ties and a more solid relationship between two countries.
Mr. Johnston says that while Canada has a mediocre record in attracting foreign students, Brazil is fertile ground.
He sees “a huge appetite in Brazil for Canadian education. To my great delight, Canada is the most favoured nation for Brazilians studying abroad.”
Last year, the Brazilian government announced funding for 75,000 scholarships for undergraduate and graduate students to study abroad. The private sector stepped up to finance an additional 26,000.
Canada wants a big piece of that program, Mr. Johnston said.
“We're anxious in Canada to obtain not only a good share of that, but to use that initiative to promote the diplomacy of knowledge between the two countries.”
International education is big business and there is huge potential for growth in Canada, said Paul Davidson, president of the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada and a driving force behind the Brazil trip.
Selling Canadian education to foreign students brings in more than $6.5-billion in annual revenue, he says.
But Canada trails other countries in this area.
“Canada has about half as many international students in our classrooms as the global standard,” Mr. Davidson said.
Foreign students make up about 15 per cent of the university population in most industrialized countries. In Canada, the proportion is about seven per cent, Mr. Davidson said.
But the trip is about more than luring the brightest prospects from emerging markets, said Mr. Johnston.
“You should always be conscious of that and not go to a country with a rapacious attitude that you're going to collect up their best students and bring them here,” he said.
Canadian universities hope to set up an exchange of students, as well as research and ideas, added Mr. Davidson.
For example, the delegation will visit a synchroton much like the one at the University of Saskatchewan, only newer, he said. A synchroton is a giant particle accelerator used in many areas of groundbreaking research.
The delegation includes 10 presidents from Canada's 15 major, research-oriented universities. Three parliamentary secretaries and three MPs from different parties are also in the group, along with Mr. Johnston's wife Sharon.
Mr. Johnston will meet Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, attend meetings and deliver speeches at a couple of conferences. After a week in Brazil, he will visit Barbados and then Trinidad and Tobago.
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