Advocacy

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) is moving forward with its review of the International Student Program. This presentation outlines some of what is being considered. The states objectives of these potential measures are to: reduce student vulnerability, increase diversity, encourage sustainable growth and align work related facilitation measures with broader labour market objectives.
CICan continues to engage directly with the department on these issues and others with feedback from members through various forms of engagement. Among potential changes to the program is the implementation of a framework whereby Designated Learning Institutions (DLIs) who meet certain criteria could receive expedited processing. In engaging with IRCC on this concept, CICan has cautioned that a fulsome consultation with colleges would be required to ensure that identified criteria are feasible and do not disadvantage or favour institutions based on size, language, location, etc. Still in the conception phase, IRCC selected a small group of public post-secondary institution and is working with them to test the data collection process and ensure that requirements accurately reflect the reality on the ground. Participating in this test group does not confer any special benefit, all DLIs will have the opportunity to participate in the framework should it move forward. In alignment with one of CICan’s long standing advocacy priorities, IRCC is also working towards the development of a more streamlined LOA verification system and will begin to test different models this fall. In all of these initiatives, CICan continues to advocate for more transparency in terms of information exchanges and better predictability in terms of study permit processing.

Regarding recent comments regarding a potential cap on international student enrollment by federal officials, please see CICan’s statement on the issue.

Marketing & Recruitment

In 2022, Immigration Refugee and Citizenship Canada processed just over 399,000 (61% of the total) study permits associated to a college or institute with an average approval rate of 52% (compared to 55% for all applications). Notable growth markets include Nigeria, where approval rates continue to improve along with those in francophone African markets, and Nepal which has grown significantly in terms of volume. Supporting the diversification of source countries of international students through college and institute sector specific and marketing and recruitment missions continues to be a priority.

Earlier this year and with support of CanExport and Global Affairs Canada, we coordinated a South Asia trade diversification mission bringing 15 colleges and institutes from across Canada to Kathmandu, Nepal. For Canadian and local institutions, it was an opportunity to connect, explore partnerships, and think about ways to increase student mobility in both directions.

Upcoming marketing and recruitment missions/events include:

• Italy (September 18-21, 2023): B2B mission with education agents from Italy, Spain and France delivered in collaboration with Global Affairs Canada and involving opportunities to develop partnerships with Italian Higher Technological Institutes.
• Vietnam (October 13 – 18, 2023): Agent seminars and CICan specific education fairs organized in conjunction with Canada Education International (CEI) events, with a focus on key program areas including Health, Hospitality, Tourism and IT.
• Philippines (October 21 – 23, 2023): Seminars and B2Bs with education agents and potential institutional partners including an education fair with a focus on key program areas including Health, Hospitality, Tourism and IT. Organized in partnership with Global Affairs Canada.

Through our corporate partnership with Scotiabank, students at participating institutions may be eligible to receive a scholarship of $500.

Global Skills Opportunity

To date, close to 5,500 students – 75% of whom identify as underrepresented – have completed or where in the process of completing a GSO funded international study or work experience in one of more than 100 non-traditional destinations. Of them, 64% identify as a low-income student, 18% as a student with a disability and 13% as an Indigenous student. Participants report the acquisition of technical and soft skills with 78% reporting an increase in their communication skills, 70% in their networking skills, and 68% in their problem-solving skills. International networks have also expanded through Global Skills Opportunity with 83% of GSO experiences so far taking place in non-traditional countries.

Advocating for the renewal and expansion of Global Skills Opportunity is a key priority over the next six months. To that end, in collaboration with Universities Canada and other stakeholders, CICan recently tabled a submission to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance in advance of Budget 2024. This year, CICan’s flagship advocacy event taking place on October 3rd, ‘CICan on the Hill’, will focus on international advocacy priorities with a spotlight on Global Skills Opportunity. A full day of activities and meetings are being planned along with an evening reception with students who have participated in Global Skills Opportunity to highlight the benefits and impacts for their skills development and employment.

A subsequent call for proposals for innovation projects was launched earlier this year and resulted in a total of 27 new projects being selected for funding including several new consortia projects.

South Africa Skills Training Enhancement Program (SASTEP)

CICan has recently received approval from Global Affairs Canada (GAC) of its proposal for a 4-year skills training program in South Africa. We are currently negotiating the contribution agreement with the department. South Africa Skills Training Enhancement Program (SASTEP) will work in South Africa’s Eastern Cape and Limpopo States in partnership with the Department for Higher Education and Training (DHET) to support public TVET institutions to strengthen the delivery and inclusiveness of TVET training and to expand the student support services that promote career readiness for all learners, including women and people with disabilities. Canadian colleges and institutes will be partnered with the South African colleges to enhance four key areas of TVET programming central to ensuring graduate success: training instructors to adapt curricula for online and blended delivery and to use educational technology to support teaching and learning; strengthen the capacity of lecturers to work with a diverse student population; supporting the expansion of work-integrated learning opportunities through internships, and; strengthening student support services managers.

Invitation to submit a proposal for a project in Egypt

CICan has been invited by Global Affairs Canada to submit a full proposal for a development project in Egypt by the end of October 2023. While several CICan members have maintained partnerships and won projects to work in Egypt over the years, this opportunity will be a return to Egypt for CICan after more than 10 years since the end of the Business Development Support Services Project (BDSSP).

“Resilient health systems for All” Call for Concept Note

Global Affairs Canada launched a call for concept notes in May 2023 to support “Resilient Health Systems for All”. CICan’s concept, Resilient and Equitable Community Health in Africa (REACH Africa) would take a holistic approach, grounded in the social, economic, and environmental determinants of health to improve health care service delivery in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). REACH Africa will increase harmonization of health policies and training programs and strengthen centres of excellence in health care education and delivery. It will expand men’s and women’s access to health care services by increasing the size of the qualified health workforce. Beneficiaries of gender-responsive training programs will be empowered to secure employment, a key pillar of Canada’s Feminist International Assistance Policy.

The concept was developed in consultation with CICan members and its two key regional partners, the East African Community (EAC) and the Union Economique et Monétaire Ouest Africaine (UEMOA), which together assemble 15 countries in East and West Africa and allow for significant and far-reaching impact. If the concept note is selected, CICan will have eight weeks to develop a full proposal, which would likely be sometime in the fall of 2023.

CICan’s Indo-Pacific Strategy

The creation of a business development strategy for the Indo-Pacific region will support CICan and its members to identify new opportunities more strategically beyond recruitment, focusing on institutional partnerships and contract training. CICan has received funding from Global Affairs Canada’s CanExport Associations program to fund the strategy development, which will be completed by March 2024.

MoU signing - Ministry of Education of Brazil

On April 26th, CICan signed a 5-year Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Ministry of Education of Brazil, namely the Secretariat of Professional and Technological Education (SETEC). The priority areas identified for the cooperation are to scale up the One Thousand Women approach in Latin America and Africa, the mobility of teachers, students and researchers to consolidate and expand critical thinking in strategic areas for the development of both countries, and the knowledge exchange of inclusive professional and technological education policies for access, retention and success taking into consideration gender issues. In November 2023, CICan will be participating in the REDITEC annual conference in Natal, Rio Grande do Norte located in the northeast of Brazil.

Pacific Alliance (PA-EFE)

The Pacific Alliance Program successfully concluded all activities on March 31, 2023. We would like to thank the 20 participating member colleges and our ministerial and institutional partners from Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru for their commitment and the excellent work carried out during the six years of the program implementation. The PA-EFE team is very proud of the results achieved by the 16 institutional alliance projects and technical assistance in the four Pacific Alliance countries.

The results were highlighted in January 2023 during the capitalization forum organized in Mexico. This hybrid event brought together more than 300 delegates from the four PA countries and Canada, including nearly 150 face-to-face, and encouraged the exchange of experiences and good practices. It was an opportunity to celebrate the results, but also to identify measures for the sustainability of the program and future collaborations with the Pacific Alliance countries.

While we wait for the finalization of the capitalization website of the PA-EFE Program and the capitalization book, we invite you to visit our YouTube channel to immerse yourself in this success story.

One Thousand Women: I am woman, I exist, I participate (FEP) Senegal

The next calls for proposals to CICan members is scheduled for September 7, 2023, and will include:

• 7 calls for the development of instrumentation for Professional Certification of Specialization (PCS) programs in TVET partner institutions (ETS_01);
• 1 call for capacity building on gender-sensitive pedagogy (ETS_02);
• 1 call to support the agents of the communication office of the Ministère de la Formation professionnelle, de l’Apprentissage et de l’Insertion (MFPAI) to equip themselves with tools for advocacy activities (MIN_02).

Also of note is the first Forum combined with an orientation session for Canadian colleges and institutes selected through the call process. These activities will take place in Dakar, in early December 2023.

EFE Tunisia Al-Najah

The EFE Tunisia Al-Najah project, which will officially end in March 2024, is undertaking its final activities. Under the auspices of Tunisia’s Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research, its closing event will take place on September 20, 21 and 22, 2023: the Project Capitalization and Applied Research and Innovation Forum. This forum aims to i) present the various achievements in applied research and innovation in the areas of: gender, climate change and transformative pedagogy and; ii) promote the sustainability of the project’s achievements. For more information, please visit our Facebook page.

Empowerment through Skills Program (ESP) Tanzania

On July 20, 2023, in Dodoma Tanzania, Canada’s Minister of International Development together with CICan’s President and CEO and the Tanzanian Minister of Education, Science and Technology officially announced the ESP program in Tanzania. The announcement received strong local media coverage and social media coverage.

An official ceremony was held at Mto wa Mbu Folk Development College to mark the launch of National Safeguarding Guidelines on July 22, 2023. These will be implemented by all 55 FDCs, over 500 Vocational Education and Training Institutes, and 43 Teachers Colleges, both public and private. The event was attended by 250 people including leaders from FDCs and CBOs, community leaders, students and other stakeholders. The event was presided over by the Minister of Education Science and Technology and CICan’s President and CEO who both gave well-received speeches.

Kenya Blue Economy Skills Training (KBEST)

In June, the team held an introductory webinar for CICan members with an update on the project and information on the upcoming request for proposal for partnerships launch. During the webinar, MEDA provided an overview of the approved Labour Market Analysis that was conducted over the past months and finalized in May. Around 30 members attended the session.

The KBEST team is currently finalizing the Request for Proposals for institutional partnerships for launch in early September. Thematic partnerships will be launched later in the fiscal year.

The institutional capacity assessments and selection of partner TVET institutions was completed in June. In addition to two National Polytechnics and two specialized institutions, 20 vocational training centres and technical training institutes have been selected in consultation with seven county governments in the Lake and Coast Regions.

Skills to Access the Green Economy (SAGE)

A Climate Change and Green Skills workshop was hosted by SAGE in St. Lucia on May 31-June 1, with 40 program steering committee and local institution representatives from across the Caribbean. Making use of an interactive approach, participants had the opportunity to learn more about climate change, the green economy, and green skills. Presentations were made by CICan, Canadian colleges, local industry representatives, and a consultant presenting the Women and Green Skills research report.

SAGE has been organizing study tours for students and teachers. The first study tour, focusing on animal genetics, took place in October 2022, involving students and faculty from Jamaica who visited Ontario.  Participants from Grenada visited Newfoundland in May 2023 for a study tour focused on the blue economy. In July and August, three study tours occurred: one to Ontario and Newfoundland on renewable energy for participants from Guyana; a joint tour for participants from Belize and St. Lucia to Alberta on agriculture and horticulture; and a tour to Ontario on sustainable construction for participants from Dominica.

Young Africa Works – Kenya: Youth Employability Through TVET (YAWK-TVET)

A total of 672 (384M/288F) in-service TVET instructors have been trained in Competency Based Education and Training (CBET) by Master Trainers (themselves trained through YAWK-TVET). An ambitious national roll-out of CBET training in TVET institutions continues.

The program has established at least one Industry Advisory Committee (IAC) in each of the 25 TVET partner institutions. The IACs have been fundamental in supporting CBET curriculum development and alignment with industry needs, advising on the requirements for industrial attachments, and exploring various ways of supporting the institutions to align with employer expectations.

During the January and May 2023 intakes, a total of 19 new courses were launched with 321 (211M/110F) students enrolled bringing the overall number of courses launched so far to 35 and the total number of students enrolled to 666 (450M/216F). In addition, curriculum packages and teaching and learning materials have been developed for 11 courses to prepare them for launch in September 2023.

During the period our donor, Mastercard Foundation, challenged CICan to do more to accelerate course launches. This was in a context in which CBET is now being prioritized, which is great news, but for which policy directives are only just being issued. Our members have been responding to this challenge in different ways, and we encourage them to do as much as possible to complete their course development. The course assessment and accreditation process has presented a significant bottleneck that the team in Nairobi has been working tirelessly to address. In August, the team convened the principals and heads of agencies to address these bottlenecks. The meeting resulted in important agreements that will speed up the availability of CBET courses.

Canadian International Development Scholarships 2030 (BCDI 2030)

The BCDI 2030 program released its first call for proposals for scholarship projects for studies in Canada last spring. Twenty-eight colleges and universities submitted project proposals to offer training and study opportunities aimed at reducing inequalities in access to higher education and contributing to economic and social development in partner countries. The winning scholarship projects will be announced in September 2023.

Upcoming Calls for Proposals:

• October 2023: Institutional partnerships in leadership & governance and professional integration.
• February 2024: Institutional partnerships for partner Colleges and universities in program development, gender-responsive teaching and learning environments, professional integration.
• April 2024: Launch of the 2^nd call for proposals for Scholarship projects for studies in Canada.

Review of the Education for Employment (EFE) approach

As part of our international partnerships’ strategy (2022-2025), CICan is committed to undertaking a review of our Education for Employment (EFE) approach, of which the Request for proposals (RFP) process is a part. A first stage of the review process was initiated at the end of 2022. Senior Program Officers Fanny Hébert and Peter Hach led the analysis of a sample of past and current EFE programs. The recommendations arising from the analysis were discussed internally. The key questions that emerged were:Is our RFP process coherent across programs? Is our selection process fair and not too onerous for members? Are members’ needs being met? Are our partners’ needs being met?

In the Spring, we held webinars with members to discuss emerging directions in areas such as communications, financial requirements, consortium model, selection process. Details of the revised or new practices which will now be used are available here. We would like to take this opportunity to thank all members who participated in the consultations.

The next step will be to work internally and then consult with you on these six key priority themes for GAC and several other funders: Gender, localization, applied research, environment, entrepreneurship and evidence base/research agenda. At the same time, we continue to work in concert with our EFE teams to improve our services to members and partners in the implementation of EFE. Caroline Marrs and Marie-Josée Fortin remain available for any additional recommendations or suggestions in connection with Requests for Proposals (RFPs) under the EFE framework.

Team Canada Trade Mission to India and Japan

As part of Canada’s Indo-Pacific Strategy, the Honourable Mary Ng, Minister of International Trade, Export Promotion, Small Business and Economic Development will lead a Team Canada Trade Mission to India and Japan to help Canadian exporters and innovators from across the country position themselves in this market by showcasing their capabilities and competitiveness and facilitate long-term trade and investment opportunities. CICan will participate in the upcoming India mission on October 9-13, 2023.

Asian Development Bank’s Business Opportunities Fair

In the development of CICan’s own Indo-Pacific Strategy, we will be attending the Asian Development Bank’s Business Opportunities Fair from October 4-5, 2023 in Manila, Philippines. The Fair will provide exposure to opportunities to support ADB projects. ADB will also host the 10th edition of the International Skills Forum (ISF) Oct 17-19^th in Manila.

GAC Middle East and North Africa (MENA) events 2023/2024

EduCanada MENA Tour 2023
As a result of the fully restored relations with Saudi Arabia, the annual Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Tour will be taking place from November 1^st to 13^th in Jordan, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Oman. These fairs are designed to allow Canadian educational institution representatives to meet potential students and their parents, as well as educational agents and institutional representatives throughout the MENA region. There will be two stops in Saudi Arabia, including Riyadh from Nov 6-7/23 and Jeddah from Nov 8-9/23.

Canada-MENA Education Partnership Forum 2024
Canada has created its own annual event in the region, called the Canada-MENA Education Partnership Forum. The third edition of this event will take place in Saudi Arabia in Jan/Feb 2024 (exact time and location TBC). Previous editions have taken place in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. The overall objective is to explore opportunities for partnerships between participating Canadian post-secondary institutions, and local contacts from post-secondary institutions, governmental education authorities and private sector companies from the MENA region. This event is organized and supported by the International Education Division at GAC, the Embassy of Canada to Saudi Arabia and Trade Commissioners covering the Education sector in our missions across MENA.

CICan Connection Conference 2024

SAVE THE DATE to join us at the 2024 CICan Connection Conference taking place next year in Calgary, April 29th to May 1st, with the inspiring theme Growing Talent. Our annual conference is the largest event of its kind in Canada where over 1200 participants from across the country and around the world will gather to reflect, discuss, share and drive knowledge on how higher education is growing talent for a resilient future. This theme resonates with our amazing host city, Calgary, renowned as a hub attracting and growing talent into areas like high tech, agriculture, energy and tourism. As usual, the Conference will include a range of sessions on various dimensions of international education.