International student cap could help clean up post-secondary 'mess,' say B.C. advocates

When Dayzzel Dungo arrived in Canada from the Philippines in 2022, things did not get off to a smooth start.

After landing at Vancouver International Airport, she struggled to get her bearings and navigate public transit before eventually making it to her homestay.

"I don't know what to expect in Canada," Dungo recalled. "I don't have contact with the school ... my phone's not working properly because it's from the Philippines."

Dungo, 26, was admitted to Tamwood International College, a private school with campuses in Vancouver, Whistler and Toronto. When the school year started, there were more challenges.

"The school doesn't have support on how to get MSP [health-care coverage], they said just figure it out, there's Google," she said. "There was no support with how to get my SIN, which bank is beneficial for international students. I found those things along the way."

The federal government recently announced it will cap the number of international student permits over the next two years. Ottawa says the measure is to stabilize the number of international students, who often arrive without "the proper supports they need to succeed."

After Ottawa announced a two-year cap on student permits, the British Columbia government said it is banning new post-secondary institutions from applying to enrol international students for the next two years.

The federal government has given B.C. an allotment of 83,000 applications in 2024. That could result in 50,000 approved study permits based on current approval rates, according to a statement from the Ministry of Post-Secondary Education and Future Skills.

Of the 175,000 international post-secondary students from more than 150 countries in B.C., about 54 per cent are enrolled in private institutions, the province says.

On Monday, Selina Robinson, the minister of Post-Secondary Education, said the province began looking into the system last March and found instances of "poor-quality education, a lack of instructors" and even the "scaring away" of students from lodging formal complaints by certain private institutions.

"They worry that if they complain, it will risk their student visa, and it will sacrifice all the effort their families have put into making sure they can get a quality education," Robinson said. "So they're less likely to complain."

Dungo says her experiences have been positive since the early challenges. She transferred to Pacific Link College in Surrey where she now works as a student ambassador to better support international students.

She also volunteers at Surrey's Progressive Intercultural Community Services (PICS) Society, a non-profit that recently opened an international student union (ISU) to help recently-arrived students.

"We help students with their resumés, we help students get jobs, practise for their interviews," she said. "That makes me so happy, because I didn't have that access."