The Conduct of Education Agents and Ethics in International Student Recruitment

The Conduct of Education Agents and Ethics in International Student Recruitment is what the Canadian government is now focusing on and that does bode well for the industry that deals with young human lives and their careers. International Education Strategy Planning Papers is a good beginning but so many basic questions are still being asked. Brand Canada needs all stakeholders to team up and act.

However, there are 5 pressing ground level issues that need to be considered while these questions about ethics, regional and program diversity, etc are being debated about, to ensure they achieve their objective at the big picture level:

1. If the message goes out that getting visas for Ontario /GTA colleges may get tough for Indian students as the govt is looking for diversity and would prefer them to go into regional areas and other provinces, then the loophole that students are likely to use is to apply for study permits for colleges in other provinces/regional areas and after getting a visa and landing in Canada then they will apply for a refund and get into a college in Ontario (or GTA more likely)! Many colleges are able to give last minute LOAs to onshore students. This is already happening now!

This way , neither the diversity objective of the govt will be achieved nor is it fair to the non-Ontario colleges that may end up being used for jumping, and last but not the least , the agent facilitator who has worked hard for 6-8 months with the student and provided free services would suffer an income loss ! [And yes, direct authorised agents of public colleges and universities do not usually charge a fee to students as they get paid commissions on student enrolment. So its not in their interest to facilitate jumping. However when it comes to sub agents of aggregators, there may be no monitoring.]

One must also not miss the role of some unethical onshore agents who may prey on and lure unsuspecting students at airports or in cabs and may advise them to jump DLIs with some cash back offers!

Suggestion : The govt policy that allows students to change DLI without any question may need to start putting in a condition of no change of DLI possible without completing one or two semesters at the original DLI like some other countries do.

2. The current policy of allowing students to enter Canada any time before their program starts is also leading to students who got their visas for non -Ontario colleges to arrive early in Toronto, settle in with friends or relatives in GTA, and ask for refunds from their original DLI, withdraw and shift to colleges in GTA ! This is giving them too much time to figure out how to jump ! If DLI change is not allowed until a semester or two is completed , it wd be a solution for this too . In the meanwhile, setting a maximum time limit for arrival before the intake could be a good start.

3. The annual living cost of 10,000 CAD in GIC certainly needs to go up. GTA and Vancouver could need 18,000 CAD , rest of canada cd ask for 13,000 CAD per year . UK govt discriminates between London and the rest of UK for living costs. Also , for SDS , maybe two years living cost could be shown in GIC if the student is going for a two years or longer program. International students going hungry or having to resort to unmentionable methods can be prevented if they have sufficient funds with them.

And again DLI shifting should not be allowed till 1-2 semesters for the same reason mentioned before .

4. Aggregators need to show their list of 10s of thousands of subagents and colleges should demand that every student applicant should have the agent aggregator and the subagent names listed against his name. Agent aggregators need to be held responsible for all their subagents’ activities . Its only ethical to the industry that all the rules and accountability that apply to agents shd also apply to aggregators.

5. International Student tuition fees need to be insured or be safe in an ESCROW account so that a DLI declaring bankruptcy will not be a repeat of the Quebec private colleges fiasco that happened not so long ago.