New IRCC Announcement – Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) announced on January 22nd that it will be enacting measures to curb immigration. And reduce the quantity of foreign study permits issued to students abroad by the year 2024.
Updates to the programs’ eligibility requirements were notified by the IRCC. In order to better match the Post-Graduation Work Permit (PGWP) with these modifications.
Specifically, foreign students who start a study program that is a part of a curriculum licensing agreement will no longer be eligible for a PGWP when they graduate. That’s as of September 2024.
Students attending a private institution that has been granted a license to offer the curriculum connected with a public college do so under curriculum licensing agreements.
Or, to put it another way, a student enrolling at a private institution that has license agreements with a public college will not be eligible for a PGWP.
As per the new IRCC announcement, IRCC believes there is less monitoring over these programs than over public universities. Which may provide a gap in PGWP eligibility.
Institutions that accept more students than they can accommodate are becoming more and more prevalent. These universities occasionally have to cancel students’ letters of acceptance (LOAs) as a result of this. The fact that Canada has welcomed an unprecedented number of overseas students has made this situation worse.
For example, in October 2023, Northern College in Ontario withdrew admission offers from 500 applicants. The institution said that due to a shortage of accommodation. And employment opportunities for overseas students, they were forced to revoke offers.
With this new IRCC announcement, IRCC hopes to improve these circumstances. And preserve a more regulated and sustainable environment for foreign students studying in Canada by putting this reform into effect.
IRCC Announcement – Extended work permit duration for shorter graduate programs
In this new IRCC announcement, the IRCC also revealed that applicants seeking a three-year work visa who have completed a master’s degree or other short graduate-level program will soon be qualified to do so.
A PGWP’s duration is currently determined by the duration of each person’s study program. The existing requirements have reduced the period of time graduate students or master’s students may work in Canada. Because master’s programs are typically shorter than undergraduate ones.
With this modification, master’s students will be allowed to apply for an extended work visa. Giving them more time to obtain beneficial job experience in Canada. They frequently find it simpler to become long-term residents as a result.
How does PGWP work?
With an open work permit, or PGWP, foreign graduates can work for any Canadian business without requiring an offer of employment.
The PGWP is good for three years. However each person’s PGWP will last for a different amount of time depending on how long they want to study in Canada. The PGWP will be valid for the same amount of time. For instance, if the program was finished in less than two years or in between eight months and ten months (a program lasting ten months will provide a PGWP lasting ten months).
The PGWP’s main advantage is that it gives foreign graduates the chance to obtain professional job experience in Canada. When PGWP holders seek for permanent residency status later on, this kind of job experience comes in handy.
Eligibility for PGWP
In order to qualify for a PGWP, overseas students need to have:
- Completed studies at a qualified Designated Learning Institution (DLI) in an academic, vocational, or professional training program that lasted at least eight months.
- The study program must have resulted in a degree, diploma, or certificate.
- Maintained full-time student status in Canada for each academic term of the study program. And they submitted proof of this status when applying for a work visa after graduation.
- Obtained an official letter and transcript from the DLI attesting to the applicant’s fulfillment of all prerequisites for finishing their course of study.
Additionally, the student has to have graduated from:
- An educational establishment that is open to the public. Such as a university, trade or technical school, college, or CEGEP (in Quebec)
- A post-secondary private school in Quebec that is governed by the same laws as the province’s public schools;
- A private secondary or post-secondary educational institution located in Quebec that provides qualifying programs lasting 900 hours or more. Leading to the awarding of an attestation de spécialisation professionnelle (ASP) or diplôme d’études professionnelles (DEP);
- Private Canadian institution that is allowed by the province to provide degrees (such as Associate, Bachelor, Master, or Doctorate degrees) if the student had enrolled in a degree-granting program.
As on the most recent statistics from November 2023, as provided by the – Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), 62,410 alumni of international schools were able to secure permanent residency in Canada. Compared to the 52,740 overseas graduates who became permanent residents in 2022, this represented a significant increase of 9,670 persons.
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