With a majority of local students opting to pursue work after completing their graduation, Universities in Canada are looking towards international students in postgraduate and doctoral studies to support their research efforts.
“The research-intensive Universities in Canada are well equipped and possess a sound infrastructure, but do not have as many students as can be accommodated,” said Ernie Barber, Interim Provost and Vice-President (Academic), University of Saskatchewan, situated in Saskatoon, Canada.
He said the University needs more high quality postgraduate and doctoral students for its programmes in signature areas like Agriculture, Energy and Mineral Resources, Public Health, Synchrotron Sciences and Water Security.
With most Canadian students giving up studies after graduation, international students comprise as many as 40 per cent of the students at the postgraduate level in the University. A majority of them are from China followed by India.
“There isn’t as much need of students at the undergraduate level as it is at postgraduate and doctoral studies level. In India, there are fewer equipment in Universities and a large number of students. In Canada, it is the opposite,” said Barber, adding that there is a lot of room for students from India. “Also, it would be mutually beneficial. While Canadian Universities need Ph.D. students, institutes of higher learning in India like the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) need Ph.Ds as faculty.”
IncentivesSharing Barber’s views, Associate Dean for External Relations at Ontario Agricultural College, University of Guelph, Rene Van Acker, said it has become hard for Universities to find students for Ph.D. and Master’s programmes. The scarcity of students has also brought pressure on Canadian Universities to reduce the duration of their master’s degree programme from two years to one year and consider offering a five-year integrated programme including graduation, postgraduation and a Ph.D.
Graham Scoles, Associate Dean in the University’s College of Agriculture and Bio Resources, does not think that the higher tuition fee applicable to international students deters Indian students from pursuing postgraduate or doctoral programmes in Canadian Universities.
For, not only is the tuition fee lesser than the fee in U.S. Universities, the students receive enough stipends and scholarships that not only cover their tuition fee, but also living expenditure.
Even though the tuition fee for international students in some Universities is more than double the fee collected from domestic students, Divya Jose, a native of Ernakulam in Kerala, who is pursuing her Master’s course in Animal Nutrition in the University of Saksatchewan, said she receives a stipend of 20,000 Canadian dollars as part of the project entrusted to her by the varsity.
Divya, who is staying with her child and her husband, also a student of the same University and receiving a similar sum as a stipend, said her stipend is enough to take care of not only her tuition fee of 6,000 Canadian dollars, but also share the family’s living expenditure.
Summer jobsBesides, students are allowed to take up summer jobs during vacations and even work for up to 20 hours a week at minimum wages of 10.5 Canadian dollars per hour, said Saurav Ganguly, a native of West Bengal, who is pursuing post-doctoral studies in plant science at the University.
Even though the students come to Canada on a student visa, they are allowed to work for up to three years after completing their postgraduate studies by when they are entitled to a residency permit depending on their job.
There are also students like Gurleen Sidhu, who recently migrated to Canada, and enrolled herself for a Ph.D. in Plant Agriculture in Ontario Agricultural College. With a residency permit, her tuition fee is the same as a local student. “I pay my tuition fee out of the stipend I receive. My parents don’t have to shoulder the burden of my education expenditure,” she said.
More information can be obtained on www.educationincanada.ca
(The correspondent was in Canada recently at the invitation of High Commission of Canada in India)
