Thousands of independent agents compete to earn around $2,000 for each student they recruit for a Canadian college with which they have an agreement
Amid promises of offering great educational courses, job opportunities and permanent residencies in Canada, many applicants from India have claimed that they have encountered fraud agents who have guided them into getting admission to the wrong colleges.
Education recruiters to Canada is a cutthroat industry in India. Apparently, thousands of independent agents compete to earn around $2,000 for each student for college recruitment. As per reports, in 2020-21, Ontario’s public colleges paid more than $114 million in commissions to recruiters
Revealing her trauma, Dilpreet Kaur told CBC news that a college recruiter, who works on commission, directed her to Alpha College, a school she’d never heard of before. Her parents arranged $28,000 for the course by selling two trucks and leasing the family land. But, she found it to be nothing like what the recruiter had claimed. “I don’t know why she just suggested this college,” Kaur said
Alpha, a private career college in partnership with public St. Lawrence College in Kingston, Ont., currently has 4,900 students, whereas its two-storey building has a capacity of just 420, according to the Toronto fire department.
And, there are many schools in the region that operate in similar ways.
Dubious claims about visas
The report also claims that many agents make dubious claims about visas saying it is extremely easy to get PRs once you reach Canada. But on the contrary a Statistics Canada study last year found only about 30 per cent of people who come to Canada on a student visa had obtained permanent residency within a decade.
“Ten thousand-plus sub-agents on the ground … have absolutely no direct connection with the college. The college has no ability to screen them, they have no ability to review their work or conduct with the student, promises made, advertising, you name it,” Earl Blaney, an advocate for international students and a registered Canadian immigration consultant based in London, Ont., told CBC news.
Canada using foreign students for cheap labour
Meanwhile, Bloomberg reported, foreign students are accusing the Canadian government of using them as a cheap source of labor and discarding them once they’re no longer needed.
Last year, the government allowed about 50,000 foreign students to stay for 18 months after graduation to seek employment.
The government sold the permit extension as a way to “help more graduates fill pressing needs” in key sectors and allow them to gain the work experience needed to immigrate permanently. But a year and half later, some of these permanent-resident hopefuls were left without status to work or remain in the country.
“I regret choosing Canada as a country to immigrate to, to study and to live in. Canada should appreciate foreign students more, not just use them as a form of cheap labor,” Daniel D’Souza, an accountant and former student at Seneca College near Toronto told Bloomberg.
Source: Live Mint
