International students in Canada will have to wait until January 2022.
Intelligent Overseas Education Canada Update: International students who have not yet received their study permits for the following semester may have to delay their studies in Canada in favor of studying online.
Immigration and Refugee Council of Canada
Students were told earlier in the year that if they submitted their applications by May 15, they would have their applications processed by August 6, 2021, according to the Immigration and Refugee Council of Canada. However, some students who submitted their applications by this deadline have not received a response – a situation that the IRCC attributes to students submitting applications that were not complete. Others who submitted their visa applications after the May 15 deadline are also awaiting the processing of their visa applications.
Canadian campuses
As a result, some students postpone their start dates, and many students continue to study online rather than attending classes on Canadian campuses. Mohawk College in Ontario, Canada, has seen several international applicants decide to defer their start dates to January 2022 in the hopes of being able to travel to Canada in person to begin their programs, according to Anuraj Bajwa, dean of international and partnerships.
“We have been really responsive to their requests, and we have also considered the potential of offering a few programs that are generally only offered in September intakes in January,” Bajwa explained. At the moment, Mohawk has 500 online students from countries apart from Canada. The majority of these students expected to travel to the country within the next several months.
This compared to slightly over 730 students who traveled to Canada for classes over a two- to three-month period, according to the most recent numbers. These students are from both the first and second semesters, as well as the upper semesters. International students & educational institutions have been experiencing delays in completing study visa applications owing to Covid-19 for the last year, according to Bajwa.
direct flights from India to Canada
Additionally, the safety-related preventive measures are taken by the Canadian government, including travel restrictions and a ban on direct flights from India, generated some inherent uncertainty in the lives of our students from within Canada who were looking forward more to study, he stated. In September, a limited number of direct flights from India to Canada began operating again.
Applications have increased significantly this year.
As of August 2021, the IRCC reported processing nearly 370,000 study permit applications. The same period last year saw around 100,000 study permit applications processed. Earlier this year, the IRCC promised to process by the end of August all filed study permit applications submitted by May 15. This commitment resulted in nearly 29,000 study permit applications being filed. The IRCC reports that “as of August 6, only 80 applications remained unprocessed.” To be fair to applicants who needed additional information or whose incomplete applications, the IRCC did not include them in its processing commitment.
Students who submitted applications
According to the agency, it has a large number of incomplete applications in its processing inventory. Biometrics, immigration medical exams, police certificates, and other application-related documents are not finalized until all applicants have submitted them. Students who submitted applications that were not complete were either rejected or refused admission, leaving them without an answer. According to the agency, complete applications submitted after May 15, 2021, are being processed as quickly as possible by the IRCC, according to the agency.
Canadian Association of Public Schools-International
An earlier newsletter sent to Colleges and Institutes Canada members explained that approximately 60,000 completed applications (including about 24,000 from India and 3,700 from France) would still need to be processed after that date. According to the organization, it believes the backlog will be cleared by the end of September. Processing delays have also resulted in deferrals as a result of these delays. “Certainly, some students who submitted later did not receive permission in time for school to begin,” Bonnie McKie, executive director of the Canadian Association of Public Schools-International, says. Currently, most of these students have deferred to the second semester, which will begin in February or November depending on how the school year is structured.”
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