{"id":1144,"date":"2020-08-25T07:01:49","date_gmt":"2020-08-25T05:01:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rise-global.info\/?p=1144"},"modified":"2022-01-04T16:28:07","modified_gmt":"2022-01-04T15:28:07","slug":"canadas-international-graduate-students-and-covid-19-beyond-the-rhetoric-of-welcome","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rise-global.info\/en\/canadas-international-graduate-students-and-covid-19-beyond-the-rhetoric-of-welcome\/","title":{"rendered":"Canada\u2019s international graduate students and COVID-19: Beyond the rhetoric of welcome"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the first actions taken by governments across the globe in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic was to initiate\u00a0border shutdowns<\/a>. This action continues to\u00a0negatively impact<\/a>\u00a0immigrants, refugees, and temporary workers in various ways. Yet, overlooked by many, international graduate students have also been caught in the crosshairs of pandemic policy changes. Most prominently, recent reactive measures implemented by the\u00a0United States<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Canada<\/a>\u00a0have sparked an important public conversation about this vulnerable group.<\/p>\n

In mid-July, American universities and US media outlets reacted with outrage to COVID-related regulations introduced by\u00a0Immigration and Customs Enforcement<\/a>\u00a0(ICE), decreeing that international students will need to either take in-person courses or face deportation. The announcement left graduate students with a seemingly impossible and dangerous choice. Institutions including Harvard and MIT\u00a0filed lawsuits<\/a>\u00a0against the ICE regulation and demanded that the directive be rescinded. Widespread resistance to the policy led the Trump administration to backtrack, but only for students already in the US\u2014not for new incoming international students<\/a>. While this controversy was brewing in the US, Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC)\u00a0announced plans<\/a>\u00a0to help international students to continue their education during the pandemic.<\/p>\n

The IRCC announcement contrasted starkly with the Trump administration\u2019s draconian stance. As the US has become increasingly hostile toward racialized newcomers, Canada maintained its\u00a0welcoming stance<\/a>\u00a0to skilled immigrants. International students\u2014much\u00a0like in the US<\/a>\u2014are a major source of revenue for both Canadian universities and the broader economy, contributing nearly\u00a0$22 billion<\/a>\u00a0annually. Further, international graduate students, especially those in doctoral programs, are used by universities as\u00a0cheap, disposable labour<\/a>, similar to their domestic counterparts. Most research on the\u00a0exploitation of international graduate students<\/a>\u00a0comes out of the US, partly due to the high number of students that choose that country as their preferred destination (over one million<\/a>). However, proportional to Canada\u2019s much smaller overall population, the number of international students is staggering at\u00a0642,000<\/a>, making them a critical mass in Canadian institutions.<\/p>\n

More importantly, the growth of the international graduate student population in the US has\u00a0plateaued<\/a>\u00a0while Canada\u2019s increases every year. We might assume Canada\u2019s less restrictive laws for international students\u2014fewer constraints for\u00a0on and off-campus employment<\/a>,\u00a0more opportunity to immigrate<\/a>\u00a0to the country after graduation, and smaller tuition fees\u2014to be the reason for the increasing numbers. But as much as these conditions seem favourable compared to the US, research being conducted at the University of Calgary shows that the treatment of international students, particularly graduate students, is not much better in Canada. In fact, one could argue that beyond the legal limitations, international graduate students attending large, research-intensive universities in the US are better off than in comparable universities in Canada.<\/p>\n

Despite the\u00a0widespread notion<\/a>\u00a0that studying in the US is significantly costlier than in Canada, for international graduate students, the financial aid conditions for graduate programs in the US are far more promising. In Canada, international students have to pay between\u00a0two and three times<\/a>\u00a0the tuition that Canadian students pay. This disparity leaves many international graduate students in dire financial situations since they receive the same stipends as domestic graduate students but have to pay a much larger sum in tuition and fees. Contrary to the\u00a0popular myth<\/a>\u00a0that international students are rich, most come from modest means and squarely depend on stipends for their subsistence.<\/p>\n

Comparatively, research-intensive public universities in the US do not differentiate between domestic and international origin at the graduate level. What these institutions do is\u00a0lump international students<\/a>\u00a0into the same category as out-of-state students and charge them the differential out-of-state fee. For context, in the US, tax-paying residents of a state pay less in tuition to attend university (at any level) in their state. Everyone else (domestic students from another state and international students) pay tuition as out-of-state-students but, in the majority of research-intensive universities, the scholarship packages for all graduate students come with a\u00a0tuition waiver<\/a>\u00a0easing financial burdens.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, many American universities approach the relationship between graduate students and educational institutions more equitably, with\u00a0human resources departments<\/a>\u00a0listing them as university employees. An important and under-discussed aspect of the graduate experience, both in the US and Canada\u2014partly due to the heavy focus on the undergraduate student experience\u2014is that graduate students not only study, but they are academic employees in universities. Graduate students receive a stipend in return for their work as teaching or research assistants, and even as sessional or adjunct instructors, serving as cheap, disposable labour in the\u00a0neoliberal university structure<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It is important to remember, however, that things did not always look this way. Canada, for example, has seen\u00a0dramatic changes<\/a>\u00a0in the legal accommodation of international students. Before the 1980s, international students could study and work in Canada with minimal restrictions and pay the same tuition fees as Canadian-born students. By the 1980s, international fees were put in place by most provinces. The following decades witnessed\u00a0frequent changes<\/a>\u00a0in immigration laws regarding international students, such as implementation of work restrictions, expansion of programs to facilitate working in Canada after graduation, and criteria for screening new immigrants. In 2014, the Canadian government\u00a0slashed its requirement<\/a>\u00a0for international students to have to apply separately (in addition to their study permit) for a work permit, giving automatic permission (in most cases) for those with a study permit to work on or off-campus, for a maximum of 20 hours. A positive change for international students, but around the same time,\u00a0several provinces\u00a0excluded<\/a>\u00a0international students from eligibility in provincial healthcare, requiring students to pay excessive amounts for private healthcare.<\/p>\n

Most recently, the COVID-19 pandemic has\u00a0prompted<\/a>\u00a0IRCC to make more substantial changes to accommodate international students who are\u00a0not being allowed<\/a>\u00a0to come into the country until the travel ban is lifted. Study permits for students taking online classes from their home countries are being prioritized and the time spent outside Canada during the study period should not impact post-graduate work permits. While these are positive changes, the pandemic has also brought to light the exploitative conditions endured by international students who are expected to attend online courses while navigating time differences of up to 15 hours while still paying exorbitant tuition fees. This allows Canadian universities and the government to profit off of students while using the pandemic to keep them physically away.<\/p>\n

As for international students already in Canada, they have been excluded from the\u00a0Canada Emergency Student Benefit<\/a>. In April, several provinces\u00a0temporarily changed<\/a>\u00a0their work restrictions for international students, allowing those hired under \u201cessential\u201d positions to work beyond the 20 hour weekly limit (off-campus). This decision was later\u00a0revoked<\/a>\u00a0once \u201copening\u201d phases began, leaving international students in limbo.<\/p>\n

When unprecedented crisis situations such as pandemics arise, protectionist laws are implemented, bills are amended, and policies changed. However, for those under temporary or vulnerable legal status in Canada, exploitative conditions are continuously normalized.\u00a0The 642,000 international students in Canada have become soft and invisible targets of exploitation by institutions of higher education, facilitated by government policies in Canada. It is time for the Canadian federal government and universities to reassess their treatment of international students.<\/p>\n

Canadiandimension : Pallavi Banerjee – Isabel Fandino : 06-08-2020<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the first actions taken by governments across the globe in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic was to initiate\u00a0border shutdowns. This action continues to\u00a0negatively impact\u00a0immigrants, refugees, and temporary workers in various ways. Yet, overlooked by many, international graduate students have also been caught in the crosshairs of pandemic policy changes. Most prominently, recent […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1145,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-development-actors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rise-global.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rise-global.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rise-global.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rise-global.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rise-global.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1144"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/rise-global.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1144\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1147,"href":"https:\/\/rise-global.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1144\/revisions\/1147"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rise-global.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rise-global.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rise-global.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rise-global.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}