Canada has seen a spurt in foreign students, especially from India. The initial four months of 2021 have witnessed over 67,000 Indian students getting approval to study in Canada, which is 83% more than in all of 2020, as per an analysis.
“We are seeing a ton of pent-up demand for Canadian education among Indian students,” said Meti Basiri, Co-founder and chief marketing officer at ApplyBoard, the online platform for international student recruitment that had analysed the study permit trends in Canada in the context of Indian students.
Canada received around 1,75,000 study permit applications from Indian students in 2019 while only 75,000 applications were submitted in 2020. The decrease was due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
As per the analysis, there is an increase of 74% in the study permit approval rates for Canada-bound Indian students between January and April 2021, compared to 49% in 2020. To put it simply, around 3 in 4 students from India have been approved for a study permit during the first four months of 2021. This suggests the ratio of 1 in 2 is up from last year and 2 in 3 from 2016 to 2019.
The first four months of 2021 have seen an exponential rise in the number of applications, which is likely to surpass the 2019 numbers. The top 3 popular streams of study by new Canadian study permits issued in 2020 specially for Indian post-secondary students were Business and Commerce (22%), Computing and IT (20%), and Business, Management, and Marketing (15%). These streams were also popular in 2019 among Indian students.
The majority of higher education institutions have embraced remote-learning opportunities and were forced to become more flexible with their teaching styles due to the restrictions caused by the pandemic. ApplyBoard predicts that in-person learnings will remain the main preference for students. However, options like articulation agreements are gaining popularity as it provides valuable flexibility for students. Articulation agreements allow students to pursue their degree in their home country and transfer to an institution in their domestic country.
As per ApplyBoard’s study, over 70,000 Indian students received Post-Graduation Work Permit Program (PGWPP) in 2020, and over 98% of Indian applicants were approved for their permit.
