Toronto: Canada is planning to cap the number of hours an international student can work off campus to 24 per week, beginning with the fall semester in September.
This announcement was made by Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Marc Miller in Ottawa on Monday, as the temporary policy to allow international students to work over 20 hours each week expires on Tuesday.
“Students who come to Canada must be here to study. As such, allowing students to work up to 24 hours per week will ensure they focus primarily on their studies, while having the option to work, if necessary,” a release from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) said.
The reduction is substantial as the previous policy, introduced during the Covid-19 pandemic, allowed them to work for as much as 40 hours every week.
However, such students can work unlimited hours during a scheduled summer break, like the summer vacation.
IRCC also announced that international students who begin a college programme at a private institution through a licensing arrangement with a public counterpart will not be eligible for a post-graduate work permit after they graduate. This measure will apply to those admitted on or after May 15 this year.
“Working off campus helps international students gain work experience and offset some of their expenses. As international students arrive in Canada, we want them to be prepared for life here and have the support they need to succeed. However, first and foremost, people coming to Canada as students must be here to study, not work. We will continue working to protect the integrity of our student programmes,” Miller said.
The policy, IRCC noted, attempts to strike the “appropriate balance” between providing students with the option to work without compromising academic outcomes. “Students who come to Canada must be here to study,” it stressed.
There has been criticism in the past that study permits are sometimes misused as a pathway to work in Canada and these new measures attempts to address that. At the same time, organisations, including those from the Indo-Canadian community, have argued that reducing work hours poses problems for such students trying to cope with cost-of-living challenges in Canada.
India is the source country for the largest cohort of international students in Canada, accounting for 278,860 of the total 684,385 study permits issued in 2023.
