Canadian province of British Columbia places two year ban on all international student visas

CANADA'S province of British Columbia has banned all of its tertiary institutions from admitting Nigerians and international students for the next two years as part of a clampdown on abuse of the visa system by local schools.

Of late, Canada has promoted immigration ferociously as part of a plan to increase the size of its population, in a bid to enable it competed with large nations like China, India and the US. However, the system has been subject to abuse by some people, forcing the British Columbia authorities to act by placing a blanket ban on all tertiary institution  education visas.

Selina Robinson, British Columbia's post-secondary education minister, said that the freeze is necessary to correct faults in an international education system that has not been working as well as it should. She said the province began looking into the system last March and found instances of poor-quality education, a lack of instructors and even the scaring away of students from lodging formal complaints by certain private institutions.

Of the 175,000 international post-secondary students from more than 150 countries in British Columbia, about 54% are enrolled in private institutions. According to Ms Robinson, one student told her that her family in India saved money to send her to British Columbia quality education but instead, she was placed in online classes upon arrival.

Ms Robinson added: "She arrived here being told that there would be in-class instruction, only to discover on her first day of class as she showed up that the entire course would be taught online. She couldn't understand why she spent all that money for an online programme.

"They worry that if they complain, it will risk their student visa and it will sacrifice all the effort their families have put into making sure they can get a quality education, so they're less likely to complain. As a result of hearing that, we're going to be developing a system where we'll be on site and doing a more proactive evaluation of programmes."

In addition, Ms Robinson also announced the province was setting minimum language requirements at private institutions so international students will be better prepared before coming to the province. Ms Robinson said the province will step up inspections of the schools to ensure standards are met, adding that many students are being taken advantage of.

Ms Robinson said the two-year pause gives the province some time to assess the impact of recent changes, such as the federal government's capping of study permits it approves over the next two years. There are 280 of those private schools in the province, and 80% of them are in the Lower Mainland.

David Eby, the British Columbia premier, added: “There are a wide array of private institutions, big and small, in our province but regardless of the institution’s size, our expectations of the level of quality are the same. There are institutions that are not meeting our expectations right now.”

Federal immigration minister Marc Miller, added that the new ban would reduce the number of new student visas by 35% for this year. Canada's student programme has grown significantly of late, including a 31% jump to more than 800,000 students in 2022 from the year before.