Canada has put CAP in study visa!  A view from our prospective its effects and remedies

I am writing this article to the best of my knowledge to try and understand the CAP that has been placed on the study visa.

This article is written by keeping international students in mind.

What is CAP?

A CAP in this context is essentially an upper limit to anything. This is said by IRCC website on 22 Jan 2024 saying the CAP will be to 360,000 international students.

The way in which it is written is kept bit open ended with some clear-cut information. When I read the whole announcement on IRCC website it makes sense to me.

I will try to explain in this why Canada came to this situation and what are its impact and International students.

Why Canada needs to put upper limit to issue visas?

There are several reasons to it

1. Stopping all international students during covid time. There was total travel ban on the students for few months and there was no visa issued for certain amount of time. These led to labour shortage at one place. These led to providing uncontrolled visa and allowing international students to work 40 hours in certain professions.
2. The stopping of visa has created huge back log and to that more students are added in 2022 and 2023.
3. After opening up uncontrolled visa given by Canadian government without anticipating the high demand of housing and other infrastructure requirement by the influx of many students.
4. Allowing 40 hours per week work to students to meet up and giving uncontrolled visa has led total chaos in the one of the best countries to live in which has become a big mess by its poor Management of visa.
5. While large number of visas are granted, the government of Canada has also not given any priority to the public colleges and universities and there was no control over how many students a college was taking. This could have been easily done as the government as it has a data to keep track on how many visas are issued to which colleges and what are their capacity.
6. Slow decision making on government’s part unlike the USA which always take decision based on its own interest has put Canada in difficult spot.
7. In addition to above points, the rush and allowance of visas in high numbers have encouraged many fraudulent agencies in the state of Punjab, Haryana, and Gujarat to send the undeserving candidates or deserving candidates to unregistered private colleges and to the colleges that are only interested in making money out of this visa rush.

The above are the reasons I can think of after analysing two years of visa scenario in Canada and that’s why Canada is in bit of mess today.

Now the question comes if I still want to go to and study in Canada what should I do?

The answer is simple. First ask yourself a question. Do I really want to study or just thinking of Canada education as gateway to Permanent Residency (PR). only ?

If you think you want to gain knowledge and have true international exposure,keep the following points in mind.

1. Choose a good counsellor. Not agent by visiting a big, huge office or visiting a hotel where 50 universities has put up their stalls. (These things are for business. I am not against business but in business both parties must benefit, so when you visit a fancy hotel to meet a university or college and believe what the other person says, do you observe what are the benefits for you as student is?)
2. Choose service providers who are more realistic and do not promise that you will be 100% (Nothing is 100%). We at Ayana Academy, always give realistic views and then guide our students
3. Start early and ask questions.
4. Use true counsellors just do not choose people who pretend to be counsellors.
5. Use your common sense and bit of logic and do some basic research on your own don’t follow your friends or someone randomly.

I have tried to create some RED flags for you that will help you to identify that the agency better or bad?

1. Are you being pursued to take specific program despite you are not interested?
2. Are you forced to pay first year full tuition fees?
3. Are you told you will not admit to university, or it is too costly to study at university without listening to you or explaining to you?
4. Are you told you don’t need to do anything we will do everything for you?

If you face such situation, think twice before taking services.

Now I will give you some points that might help you to identify the genuine counsellors such as Ayana Academy. Following points show how we carry out our counselling to international students.

1. We take time to listen to you and ready to work with you
2. We do not randomly suggest without counselling
3. 95% of our students are studying in Universities
4. We take fees from our students and don’t tell it’s free service (Remember nothing is free)

Keep these few points in mind and you will be able to get great help in building you career and achieve your dream.

Finally, I would like to show the difference between USA and Canada. Why USA is still leading and has better opportunities than Canada?

The notification of CAP number to 360,000 can be found here This notification has many other things mentioned which I will explain in my next blogs and write up

Written By Hiren Thaker (Founder Ayana Academy)