Fall 2003

Foreign Students

Under the new IRPA regulations, students registered in programs of six months or less no longer require a study permit. CIC put these measures into place to facilitate the movement of foreign students to Canada. While the count of recorded foreign students dropped because of this change, this does not necessarily mean that fewer foreign nationals are coming to Canada to study, just that short-term students can be admitted as visitors. Specific impacts are described below and in past issues of The Monitor.

Historically, the second quarter of the year is a period in which fewer foreign students begin their period of study as it coincides neither with the September nor the January school semesters. In 2002, for example, almost three times as many foreign students entered during the third quarter than during the second.

In the second quarter of 2003, CIC recorded the entry of over 9,000 foreign students. This was a 22 percent drop in recorded flows compared to the same quarter of 2002. As mentioned above and discussed in previous issues of The Monitor, the variation can be attributed partly to regulatory changes under IRPA which allow foreign students in programs of six months or less to study in Canada without a study permit. As a result, CIC records fewer foreign students than before the regulatory change.

Countries of Origin

South Korea, China and Japan were the three leading source countries in the second quarter of 2003, unchanged from the first quarter. The three also held these ranks in 2002. India continued to climb in importance. India ranked eighth overall in 2002 and found itself in fifth place in the second quarter of this year. Of the top 10 source countries, only India posted an increase over the same quarter of 2002. The year-to-date increase was 21 percent. Vietnam also continued to grow in importance, ranking ninth overall compared to 16^th in 2002. This represented a 2003 year-to-date increase of 59 percent compared to the same period of 2002.

The U.S. dropped to sixth place in the second quarter, compared to ranking fourth in 2002. This quarterly change should not be overemphasized, however, since U.S. foreign student numbers normally peak in the third quarter. Last year, for example, they numbered over 2,700 compared to only 395 in the second quarter.

China recorded one of the smallest gaps between the second quarter of this year and the second of 2002, falling less than five percent. This suggests that the numbers from China remain robust, despite the regulatory changes that now facilitate the entry of short-term students by not requiring study permits.

Level of Study

The greatest number of foreign students entering in the second quarter was recorded at the university level, with 2,257 students. Trade-level students formed the second largest group, with 2,060 new students. No noteworthy changes occurred at the different levels of study.

Destinations

There were no major changes to be noted in the destination of foreign students in the second quarter. This quarter did, however, mark the end of the first year of the implementation of IRPA. The new legislation has resulted in fewer foreign students being recorded in Canada, mainly because short-term students no longer require a study permit.

While it is impossible to know the precise number of foreign students who now come to Canada without study permits, we can examine changes by provincial distribution over the last year. To better understand the impact of the legislative change, we looked at the 365 days preceding the implementation of IRPA and compared that period to the first 365 days after the new legislation came into effect. Using this measure, British Columbia recorded the largest drop in foreign students, with 22 percent fewer students admitted under the first year of IRPA than in the year leading up to the new legislation. Quebec’s drop was the second largest, at 19 percent. The provinces with the smallest drops included P.E.I. (one percent), Nova Scotia (seven percent) and Manitoba (eight percent).

The reduction in the number of recorded foreign students is not surprising. Of more interest, however, is the proportionate impact by region. British Columbia and Quebec both recorded smaller shares of total foreign student flows (a drop of two percent and 0.3 percent respectively), while Ontario’s share grew by 1.5 percent. These changes to provincial shares indicate the preponderance of short-term permit holders in the recorded historical flows. Looked at another way, British Columbia and Quebec may have the largest movement of short-term students—students who now come to Canada as visitors under IRPA rather than as students requiring a study permit.

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