British Columbia has banned new colleges from enrolling international students for two years.
According to the province, the decision to place the ban was to tackle exploitative practices within the education system.
While talking about the ban, the Minister of Post-Secondary Education, Selina Robinson said the ban is necessary to rectify flaws in an international education system that “has not been working as well as it should.”
Robinson talked about a case where a student who came from India and was expecting in-class instruction, discovered on the first day that the entire course would be taught online, leading to dissatisfaction and questioning the value of his investment.
Robinson said: “She arrived here being told that there would be in-class instruction, only to discover on her first day of class as she showed up that the entire course would be taught online. And she couldn’t understand why she spent all that money on an online programme.
“We do need to stop the bad actors from misleading these students, and that’s what we’re here to fix.”
Robinson also announced that the implementation of minimum language requirements at private institutions to “better prepare” international students before arriving in British Columbia.
Robinson added: “More details on the language requirement will be released in March as work is still being done on that front.”
