Canadian schools plan to expand presence in PH to help international student applicants
With the reopening of the economy and the current labor shortage in Canada, employers are looking at international students to fill in many of the job vacancies.
Among the employers actively recruiting is Premium Healthcare Providers that needs to hire thousands of workers before the end of this year.
They’re glad that the government is temporarily lifting the limit on off-campus work hours for international students.
“There’s three times the amount of staff requests and job placements compared to the amount of employees we have so we’re looking definitely for all the students. I want to take full advantage of this November 15th, 2022 to December 2023. I wanna use it in all its capacity to try to get as many students jobs with full time hours,” Sunny Panesar, VP of Operations at Premium Healthcare Providers, noted.
Consul General Orontes Castro noted the increasing number of Filipino international students in Canada. He shared the agreements that are being formed between the Philippines and some Canadian colleges and universities.
“When our Chair or Minister of Higher Education of the Philippines came over, he signed MOU’s, one with Ryerson University, now the Metropolitan University, and another with York University. Centennial College is opening its representative office in the Philippines very soon and I was informed, in terms of statistics, it almost doubled, the applications of Filipino students,” Castro said.
One of the Canadian colleges that have a presence in the Philippines is Niagara College, which has about 500 Filipino students currently enrolled in their three campuses. Their Senior Officer for Global Business Development, Divine Lacuna, talked about the change in their applicant demographics and how they’re making it easy to apply.
“Since nagpalit yung curriculum natin from senior high school when they are grade 12, they would apply. We don’t have any tuition fee deposits so once they are given their letter of acceptance, more than three months yung deadline ng tuition fee. We no longer require any test to prove na English speaker ka except the Pharmacy Technician program,” Lacuna said.
Immigration agency Sun-Cor, which was founded by former international students-turned-permanent residents, is also helping kababayans settle in Canada.
“We don’t just plan for their study visa; we plan for their permanent residency. Lumilibot po kami ng Pilipinas and even here in Canada to educate our kababayan, pano sila makatipid, paano sila hindi ma-scam. We always encourage our kababayans po to do DIY or Do-It-Yourself sa visa. It’s a very straightforward application,” Sun-Cor co-founder Nikki Sun said.
(We are going around the Philippines and even here in Canada to educate our fellow citizens on how they can save money and not fall victim to scams.)
WIth nearly one million vacant positions reported in Q2 by Statistics Canada, international students are seen to play a big role in easing the labour shortage.
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