The experience of studying in Canada, which many international students treasure and long for, could soon change. The Canadian government is considering a new framework to strengthen its international student program by specifically aiming to restrict student visa issuance and creating a two-tiered approval system among the colleges.

By 2024, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) hopes to have a new Trusted Institution framework in place. This new approach is a component of a larger plan to update the International Student Program (ISP) of the IRCC.

ICEF Monitor, a dedicated market intelligence resource for the international education industry reports that “Details are sparse at the moment but the core concept is that post-secondary institutions would be assessed against “criteria that demonstrate that they are reliable partners with regard to sustainable intake, identifying genuine students, monitoring and reporting on their compliance, and providing a safe and enriching experience for their international students.”

Trusted Institutions would be defined as those that reach a particular threshold for such criteria. The designation’s implications are unclear, however, IRCC has stated that it will “provide certain facilitations to [a] Trusted Institution, such as lighter-touch, expedited processing for its applicants.”

Any Canadian institution that hosts foreign students must be recognized as a Designated Learning Institution (DLI), meaning that their local provincial or territory government has granted them permission to do so. Additionally, in order to apply for a Canadian study visa, international students need to have an admission letter from a DLI. With some Designated Learning Institutions (DLIs) in Canada being classified as Trusted Institutions and others not, the new IRCC framework would effectively create a two-tiered system among these institutions.

DLIs were asked to join a new reporting scheme through which they will be obliged to share additional data with IRCC, including retention rates for international students, and on-time programme completion rates. Those metrics were reviewed during an invitation-only town hall event held by IRCC in early August 2023.

After the initial pilot exercise, the IRCC plans to improve its data collection survey before making it accessible to all DLIs in the fall of 2023. Through spring 2024, the collected and analyzed data will be used to determine the initial Trusted Institution destinations.

Influx of international students into Canadian universities has been on the rise. Recently, Canada’s Minister of Housing Sean Fraser and Minister of Immigration Marc Miller said that the government may need to consider caps on the number of international students in Canada.

Canada continues to be a popular study abroad destination for students from throughout the world, in large part because of the country’s excellent standard of instruction, reasonable cost, availability of employment opportunities while attending school, and potential for immigration after graduation.

The federal government is looking into a number of measures to improve the advantages of Canada’s international student program, including the possibility of putting a limit on the number of foreign students who can enroll and implementing the Trusted Institution Framework.