International Students / IRCC Update
Advocacy Efforts
International education remains a major focus of CICan’s advocacy efforts.
At the beginning of September 2021, border measures were relaxed allowing fully vaccinated travellers to enter Canada for discretionary purposes, thus further facilitating the arrival of international students and post-graduate work permit holders. Still, CICan worked closely with the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) and Transport Canada to ensure effective communication with airlines and a consistent application of policies related to travel. While direct flights from India resumed, a travel ban was extended to Morocco, which came to and end late October. This, along with additional travel restrictions announced with the emergence of Omicron, signal continued efforts on behalf of the federal government to employ travel restrictions and border measures to curb the spread of COVID-19.
Throughout the fall, CICan continued to advocate for a number of measures to facilitate the entry of international students to and within Canada. In mid-November, the government of Canada announced adjustments to Canada’s border and travel measures that served to expand the list of COVID-19 vaccines that travellers can receive to be considered fully vaccinated for the purpose of travel to Canada, and facilitate domestic travel for international students not vaccinated or considered to be fully vaccinated such that they may take a connecting flight or travel via rail to their final destination that is scheduled to depart within 24 hours of the departure time of their flight to enter Canada. At the same time, it was announced that international students (18 years of age and older) must be fully vaccinated to enter Canada.
Recognizing unequal access to vaccines in many countries from where international students originate and a large backlog in study permit applications, CICan continued to seek additional flexibilities that would allow international students to access studies online from abroad and qualify for the Post-Graduate Work Permit beyond December 31st, 2021. Near the end of November, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada confirmed that international students could continue to complete up to 100% of their studies online from outside of Canada and that time spent studying online from outside of Canada between spring 2020 and August 31st, 2022 would count towards the Post-Graduate Work Permit. It was also confirmed that international students studying online from within Canada would continue to have that time count towards their PGWP until further notice. On this, CICan continues to recommend a review of the International Student Program to accommodate evolving program delivery models that incorporate a greater amount of online studies.
COVID-19 Impact on International Education
Global Affairs Canada recently released a report: ‘The economic impact of COVID-19 on Canada’s international education sector in 2020’. According to the report, the number of international students in Canada at the end of 2020 was down by 17% from the previous year. By study level, the decline in the number of international students studying at the college level contributed to the greatest estimated GDP loss, measured at $2.55 billion, followed by university students at $2.26 billion. Despite this, Canada is now commonly ranked as the most desirable study destination in part due to a positive reaction to the various flexibilities introduced to support students and institutions. While final numbers are pending, CICan has been informed that by the end of 2021 IRCC will have processed close to 500,000 study permit applications, compared to 424,000 in 2019. Approval rates, however, continue to trend down.
As the situation with COVID-19 continues to evolve, CICan will continue to work with relevant federal departments to limit the impact on member institutions and their students and to ensure that Canada remains attractive and competitive. This includes faster study permit processing and better information sharing between immigration officials and designated learning institutions to improve outcomes.
For the latest updates, please consult CICan’s COVID-19 page.
Outbound Student Mobility Update
Global Skills Opportunity
At the beginning of November 2021, the long-awaited Global Skills Opportunity (GSO) program was officially launched via a news release, a public website (www.globalskillsopportunity.ca) and a social media campaign (Facebook
LinkedIn). Over the next four years, 54 colleges and institutes (49 lead and 5 consortium institutions) and 56 universities will be implementing a total of 124 GSO-funded projects in collaboration with international partners in more than 100 countries and to the benefit of tens of thousands of students. The GSO team has prepared several resources, including this toolkit, to support project staff with institutional specific promotion of GSO projects.
Throughout October and November, CICan’s GSO team met individually with all 49 lead GSO colleges and institutes to begin their onboarding and kick-off the implementation of GSO projects. However, we understand that new travel restrictions related to COVID-19 may have an impact on implementation. GSO implementing institutions must ensure that their GSO projects are implemented safely (including through virtual delivery as necessary) and have in place the necessary supports for students and strategies to mitigate risk including that related to the ongoing possibilities of new travel restrictions. Note that all travelers must currently be fully vaccinated in order to board a flight (domestic or international) departing from Canadian airports.
Following a successful round of innovation projects completed in April 2021, CICan’s GSO team is pleased to share this summary report Innovation Fund Report 2020-2021 that outlines key take-aways and outcomes. An inventory of outputs developed by various institutions in the context of their innovation projects will be available shortly. In November, GSO organized a workshop on reframing marketing & recruitment to expand access to outbound mobility opportunities. This is the first in a series of webinars and workshops that will be implemented in collaboration with CBIE throughout 2022. A subsequent round of innovation fund is tentatively being planned for implementation in fiscal year 2023/24 (with a call for proposals likely at the beginning of 2023).
International Partnerships Updates
Social Innovation and Impact Investing
CICan’s Innovative Finance Advisory Committee – composed of four members (NorQuest College, Humber College, Cégep de Chicoutimi, and the Marine Institute of Memorial University of Newfoundland) and other partners such as the MasterCard Foundation, SecondMuse Capital, and the Education Outcomes Fund – met regularly over the last 6 months to develop project concepts that will crowd-in different kinds of partnerships and provide innovative opportunities for CICan members to support skills training, applied research, and entrepreneurship around the world. As a member of the Canada Forum for Impact Investment and Development, CICan has recently assumed the chair of the Thought Leadership Committee, and as a member of the Gender-lens Investing Community of Practice.
Skills to Access the Green Economy (SAGE)
- The SAGE program team is pleased to share that it has led a successful pre-apprenticeship program in Dominica in the construction industry and is looking forward to leading an Apprenticeship program in Grenada in January 2022. Other news related to our Associate Degree program show that due to COVID-19, the Associate Degree programs in Lucia, Dominica & Guyana have moved their start date to January 2022. Fortunately, the Associate Degree Programs in Jamaica, Grenada and Belize did commence this fall, and the Prep programs are scheduled to start in 2022.
- One of our Senior Technical Advisors participated in a panel at the ILO workshop on Quality Apprenticeship and shared the work that SAGE has been doing in the Caribbean and the necessary components of a quality apprenticeship program. Participants joined the workshop from Latin America, the Caribbean and Europe.
- We are pleased to announce that the Applied Research call for proposals has gone out to our SAGE partners: Vancouver Island University, Parkland College, Marine Institute, Algonquin College, Dalhousie University, College of the North Atlantic, Durham College, Mohawk College, Nova Scotia Community College and Niagara College. We look forward to receiving their innovative applied research proposals.
- The SAGE team would like to thank Nathalie Garon for her work as an SPO of the SAGE team as she returns to GAC after two years at CICan through the Exchanges Canada Program and welcomes Namitha Philipose into her new role with SAGE.
For more information, please contact Pat Bidart.
Education for Employment Tunisia Al-Najah (EFE)
On November 25th, 2021, the Education for Employment Project – Tunisia Al-Najah held the official launch of six co-constructed licenses developed using a Competency-Based Approach (CBA), in the presence of the Canadian Ambassador to Tunisia, Mr. Patrice Cousineau, and the Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research (MESRS), Mr. Moncef Boukthir. These study programs developed by the Instituts Supérieurs des Études Technologiques (ISET) in close collaboration with companies in the targeted sectors of activity, benefited from the expertise and support of seven Canadian colleges that not only took up the challenge of developing these study programs entirely from a distance because of the pandemic, but did so brilliantly, their six programs having been judged exemplary by the MESRS. Congratulations to the following seven colleges: Cégep Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Collège communautaire du Nouveau-Brunswick, Cégep de Matane, Cégep de la Gaspésie et des Îles, Collège de Maisonneuve, Cégep de Jonquière and Collège Boréal, which accompanied the Tunisian institutions in obtaining the six best dossiers out of the 107 applications for the authorisation of new programs submitted to MESRS.
In the coming months, several field missions will be carried out to offer, among other things, training in development, management, and evaluation of programs according to the CBA to directors of studies and internships and to directors of ISETs; a leadership institute and a women’s leadership institute to directors of ISETs as well as training for women’s leadership trainers for the regional presidents of the National Chamber of Women Business Owners. A mission of a Tunisian delegation to participate in the CICan Annual Conference in April 2022 will also be organized.
Kenya Education for Employment Project (KEFEP)
As KEFEP enters its final months of partnership implementation in January and February 2022, CICan continues to work closely with our Kenyan and Canadian partners to ensure that all project-developed courses are fully approved and accredited and that all faculty and technicians are appropriately trained.
An official handover ceremony for the KEFEP equipment, is expected in January 2022 at Nyeri National Polytechnic with planned participation from the Kenyan government and the Canadian High Commission in Kenya. To date, five national polytechnics had launched their KEFEP courses while the remaining five plan to launch their courses in January 2022. Marketing of the 17 new KEFEP courses is ongoing, and we expect a return to regular student intakes for the national polytechnics. Additionally, CICan requested and received approval from Global Affairs Canada for a 12-month no-cost extension to allow for the achievement, monitoring, and reporting on key indicators and to ensure greater sustainability by providing more comprehensive support to partner institutions as they roll out the new CBET courses.
Supporting Innovation in the Technical and Vocational Education Sector (SITVES) in Kenya
Nine Kenyan TVET partner institutions are in the process of finalizing their research and innovation initiatives. All nine institutional research sub-grants will come to an end in February 2022. CICan, in collaboration with its Kenyan consortium partners, Linking Industry with Academia Programme Trust and Rift Valley Technical Training Institute, will focus on supporting the nine institutional sub-grantees finalize and disseminate research findings and explore policy implications and possible next steps to leverage learning from SITVES and other Applied Research activities in Kenyan TVET, including from KEFEP and Young Africa Works in Kenya-TVET.
CICan held its first TVET Applied Research Forum for Kenya on November 9 and 10, 2021 at the Kenya Technical Trainers College (KTTC) in Nairobi. The two-day hybrid forum included participation and presentations from George Brown College, Cégep Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Collège communautaire du Nouveau Brunswick, and John Abbot College. It attracted over 180 participants from various regions of Kenya, Canada, and the U.K. The Forum showcased innovations and highlighted research findings from Kenyan TVET institutions engaged in Applied Research under the SITVES and KEFEP initiatives, with the themes guided by SITVES project’s three pillars: Innovation and Applied Research Hubs, Gender Equality in TVET and Action Research.
The Empowerment through Skills Program (ESP) Tanzania
In October 2021, the ESP CICan team submitted a provisional Project Implementation Plan to Global Affairs Canada and is currently awaiting feedback before finalizing early in 2022. In November, three CICan ESP staff members conducted a first inception mission to Tanzania where they consulted with the Department of TVET at the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MOEST), the Canadian High Commission and other relevant organizations. During the inception mission, the ESP team hosted representatives from all 12 Folk Development Colleges at a 3-day preliminary workshop and consultation which took place in Dar es Salaam.
Representatives from these 12 largely rural TVET institutions are currently working on their institutional profiles and a call for partnerships to CICan member institutions is expected to be launched in the first quarter of the 2022-23 fiscal year. The CICan Senior Technical Advisor (Gender Equality) and Senior Technical Advisor (Manager) will deploy to Tanzania in January where they will set up the ESP field office, engage local staff, support baseline data gathering in the communities and visit each of the 12 FDCs and their communities to continue consultations and conduct institutional/gender audits.
The Pacific Alliance Education for Employment Program (PA-EFE)
The PA-EFE Program has been extended until March 31st, 2023, which will allow the colleges managing ongoing projects to further implement their activities that have been challenged by constraints related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
On November 17th, 2021, the program launched its final call for proposal for two technical assistance projects in Peru (B.08). These projects will assist the Peruvian ministry of education in implementing a network of FabLabs in their TVET institutions as well as a CBT inclusive Distance Learning Platform. The selected colleges / institutes will be announced at the end of January 2022.
The program successfully concluded its fourth thematic forum ‘Intersectoral Forum on Environmental Sustainability in the Extractive Sector: Best Practices and Policies from the Pacific Alliance and Canada’ that was run on October 28th, November 4th, 11th, and 18th. If you missed it, you can access the recordings of the event. With over 500 participants that joined the four webinars, the event brought together leading experts from the public, private and civil society sectors, as well as political authorities, from Canada, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru. A summary report of the forum will be published and shared in early 2022.
Young Africa Works in Kenya: Youth Employability through Technical and Vocational Education and Training (YAW-Kenya-TVET)
In September 2021, Phase 1 institutional partnerships launched courses at seven Kenyan partner institutions, with the remaining three institutions planning to launch their courses in January 2022. All five Phase 1 institutional partnerships were completed by December 2021, and we would like to thank the following CICan member for their hard work and dedication in providing training, developing learning materials, and ensuring that their Kenyan partners were ready to launch the various courses:
- TVET-06: Durham College (lead), Algonquin College
- TVET-07: Humber College (lead), Vancouver Island University, Durham College
- TVET-08: Cégep Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Collège communautaire du Nouveau-Brunswick, Champlain College
- TVET-09: College of the North Atlantic, New Brunswick Community College
- TVET-10: Nova Scotia Community College, Camosun College
In September and October 2021, the program team held a number of orientation sessions for the Phase 2 institutional partnerships to kick off the workplan development phase. Canadian and Kenyan partners worked together virtually to develop their partnership workplans, which were submitted in September/October. Workplans are in the process of being endorsed, following a comprehensive site survey of each of the 25 Kenyan partner institutions.
Work on pre-service and in service teacher training also continued with the finalization and validation of the CBET instructor training, along with the development of a curriculum development and approval roadmap. Recognition of prior learning (RPL) capacity building activities were presented and training on labour market information gathering tools was conducted to the program’s partner institutions.
Finally, the program held its annual partners forum virtually with over 150 people in attendance where lessons learned from the past year were discussed.
Mille femmes Sénégal : Je suis Femme, j’Existe, je Participe (FEP)
For this GE03 project, we are pleased to announce the members of the field team: Isabelle Demers, Senior Technical Advisor; Amen Dogbe, Monitoring and Evaluation Expert Officer; Souleymane Djigo, Administrative and Financial Coordinator and Nafissatou Ndiaye Diakité, Gender Expert for the drafting of the PIP and Annual Plan. We also expect to be soon in a position to introduce the person selected for the position of Gender Coordinator. The annual work plan has been approved by GAC and some activities have already started. By the end of the financial year, two terms of reference will be launched, namely for institutional partnerships: 1) National Gender Sensitive VAE Framework within MEFPAI; and 2) Comprehensive Gender Sensitive Framework within the One-Stop-Shops. We invite you to stay tuned for more information on the launch.
Skills Training for Employment in Mozambique (STEM)
Another milestone has been reached for the STEM program: the handover of the Pedagogical Project that rehabilitated the Instituto Industrial de Matundo (IIMatundo) and the Instituto Médio de Geologia e Minas de Moatize (IMGM) took place on October 25th, 2021. This event was joined by the architect hired by the STEM project who was responsible for the design of the technical portion of the rehabilitation, managed the works and proceeded with the local procurement of building supplies, the representative of the Direcção Nacional de Infraestruturas, Projectos e Equipamento Escolar and the representative of the Serviço Provincial dos Assuntos Sociais. The lack of suitable places for the new equipment that was going to be purchased by the STEM project, gave rise to the creative solution of having students and teachers involved with the work of rehabilitating the laboratories, giving them a fantastic opportunity of being directly involved with practical activities and seeing the results of their work in their own school. The laboratories and the storage facilities also received new furniture which will allow the proper use of the facilities and the equipment.
International Strategy Review Update
International Strategy
CICan’s current International Strategy (2018-2021) has taken its course and is due for renewal. After conducting an internal consultation process within CICan and holding consultations sessions in both official languages from October to December 2021, CICan is now developing the orientations for the new strategy, which will align with CICan’s overall strategy. The new International Strategy will be finalized by March 31st, 2022, and launched at CICan’s annual conference in Halifax at the pre-Conference event on April 24th, 2022.
Other Activities and Upcoming Events
Canada Partnerships Forum Postponed
The Embassy of Canada to the United Arab Emirates in collaboration with Colleges and institutes Canada (CICan) had been planning to host the very first Canada Partnerships Forum in Dubai on February 9th, 2022. Given the recent surge of Covid-19 virus, the Forum will be postponed to a later date. The Forum will serve as a platform for institutions to connect, network, and discuss opportunities for meaningful partnerships. CICan will be organizing a side program for its members around the Forum to visit training centres and meet with TVET authorities and other potential partners from the UAE and the wider region.
Dubai (UAE)
Member institutions are invited to attend the Canada-Korea Virtual Colleges/Universities Networking Seminar on February 15-16, 2022. This two-day event, hosted by the Embassy of Canada to the Republic of Korea in collaboration with Universities Canada and Colleges and Institutes Canada, will host virtual one-on-one meetings between Korean and Canadian post-secondary institutions, preceded by opening remarks by Canada’s Ambassador to Korea, a market briefing, and presentations by partner organizations. Click here for more information on how to register.
Canada-Korea Virtual Colleges/Universities Networking Seminar
The annual conference and exhibition in Vancouver will celebrate the theme of Brave New Realities for Higher Education in the Asia Pacific. CICan will be attending the APAIE conference and hosting a session titled, “Supporting a recovery-ready workforce: Canada’s higher-education response to healthcare labor-gaps.” Experienced practitioners and technical experts from NorQuest College, Selkirk College, and Fanshawe College will be panelists providing their perspectives on the impact of this issue in their communities and abroad.
February 15 - 16th, 2022
After the Taliban took hold of Afghanistan and the Canadian government announced that it would be accepting at least 40,000 Afghan refugees for resettlement, CICan joined WUSC and invited Presidents and leaders of Canada’s colleges and institutes to support Afghan refugees through the Student Refugee Program. In November, CICan also hosted a Special Afghan Refugee Support webinar for its members to learn more about the situation from Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), and to discuss ways in which colleges can support the Afghan (re)settlement effort.
Several institutions have already joined the Student Refugee Program or announced special scholarships for Afghan refugees. We invite you to share your initiatives with CICan as your plans take shape.
Asia-Pacific Association for International Education
Colleges and Institutes Canada and its members are scheduled to join leaders of associations, colleges and polytechnics from around the world to celebrate excellence in professional and technical education and training at the 2022 WFCP bi-annual world congress.
CICan is also working with Canada’s Education Trade Commissioner in Spain and FP Empresa, a non-profit association that brings together public, semi-private and private VET centres from all over Spain, to organize side events to showcase Canadian expertise and foster new partnership opportunities. These activities will include, but will not be limited to, B2B meetings, networking sessions, and topic-specific seminars.
March 27 – 31st, 2022
Registration for the next Leadership Institute for Leaders in International from June 18 – 23rd, 2022 in Toronto, ON, is open.
Participants in this year’s Institute will be guided by a core group of faculty comprised of David Ross, President, Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT) and Virginia Macchiavello, Associate Vice-President, International Development at Centennial College who will create an interactive environment, sharing personal stories, knowledge, and experience to underline the skills needed to lead in international education.
Early registration is encouraged for a maximum of 30 participants and a maximum of 2 participants per college. Should space permit, an additional participant may be considered. We also welcome a limited number of participants from non-member institutions or other organizations.