Chandigarh: Canada’s November 8 decision to scrap its popular fast-track visa programme - Student Direct Stream (SDS) – for students from 14 countries including India, due to strained diplomatic ties between the two countries, is set to deal a big blow to a large number of students from Punjab aspiring to go there.
Launched in 2018, the SDS programme offered faster processing for the students from 14 countries which, besides India, also included China, Pakistan, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Morocco, Peru, Philippines, Senegal, and Vietnam, besides a few others.
The said programme provided study permits to Indian students in just 20 days and high approval rate, whereas under the regular standard route, the same takes about eight weeks and poor approval rates.
Notably, India is Canada’s largest source country of foreign students and there were said to be about over 4.25 lakh Indian students in Canada in 2023; Also, over 60% of the Indian students who sought to go to Canada, had opted for SDS; the approval for the same was also over 70% in 2023 and only about 10% for the non-SDS applicants.
Notably, a majority of (at least 60%) of the Indian students going to Canada have been from Punjab; For, while there are small land holdings and limited jobs for them in Punjab, employment opportunities with fat salaries in Canada has attracted them since decades; such is the large scale of Punjabi diaspora there that almost every family in most of the villages and towns of Doaba region – Jalandhar, Hoshiarpur, Kapurthala and Nawanshahr districts – has their kin in Canada, hence another advantageous reason to fly to Canada even after selling off their farm share.
The move to end SDS comes amid the strained ties between the two countries after Canada alleged Indian government agents hand in the killing of Khalistani terrorists Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada.
Also, In September, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had announced his government’s plans to curtail the number of international students permits stating: ``We are granting 35% fewer international student permits this year. And next year, that number’s going down by another 10 percent …… immigration is an advantage for our economy – but when bad actors abuse the system and take advantage of students, we crack down.’’
However, back home, on the adverse impact of the said curbs on students education, job avenues and even the business of teaching and teaching institutes like International English Language Test System (IELTS) institutes and visa consultancies, Chandigarh-based Ashutosh Anand, owner of one of the leading teaching, training and testing partners of various language examinations - says: "Even the recent curbs introduced by the Canadian government are set to have a discouraging impact on the students aspiring to go to Canada for higher education, the same have also begun to adversely hit the business of over 20,000 institutions and immigration agencies operational in Punjab. Our fear is also that tens of hundreds of people – who are directly or indirectly associated with these agencies - would lose jobs or businesses. Besides SDS curb, the Canadian government has also recently put a two-year cap on study permits, limiting the number of international students allowed to enter Canada.
