Made in partnership with 30 Canadian institutions, the campaign includes video testimonials from international students and alumni from universities and colleges across Canada.
“There’s a future in Canada for you,” say the featured students, sharing their experiences of studying in Canada which includes overcoming personal barriers, encountering and celebrating diversity.
Since the IRCC’s announcement of study permit caps in January 2024, Canada’s international education sector has been hit by a stream of policy changes, including a further tightening and expansion of the caps and updated PGWP program requirements.
“If you look from the student perspective, there’s been a lot of uncertainty, with new announcements almost every Friday from Canada,” Christine Wach, IDP senior vice president for partnerships and stakeholder engagement told The PIE News.
“For such a big decision as studying abroad, it’s difficult to have confidence in Canada with this constantly changing and often negative narrative that’s been in the media.”
The video aims to quell these uncertainties, using the student voice to highlight students’ ongoing positive experiences.
IDP is inviting more institutions to join the #CanadaBound campaign which is designed to welcome prospective international students to the country.
“Despite the changes, a lot hasn’t changed for students in Canada. There are a lot of students that are thriving here, both in education, in their lives and in work opportunities they’ve had through co-ops, internships, post-study work permits, etcetera… so that’s what we wanted to focus on,” said Wach.
“It’s important for the students to use their voice to talk about their experiences as a counter-narrative to a lot of negativity on the internet and on social media, and I think students trust hearing students to hear what things are really like.”
It’s important for the students to use their voice to talk about their experiences as a counter-narrative to a lot of negativity on the internet
Christine Wach
After 11 months of policy upheaval, Canada’s global brand has been “damaged substantially”, according to CBIE’s National Dialogue, which calls for the establishment of a pan-Canadian international education council to convene stakeholders and rebuild ‘brand Canada’.
In IDP’s latest Emerging Futures student survey, carried out in August 2024, Canada fell from first to fourth place in prospective students’ preferred study destination rankings, as compared with the same time the previous year.
In first place ranked Australia, where the proposed study permit caps have not yet made it through parliament, followed by the US and the UK.
“The ever-changing policy landscape over the past year has shaken the confidence of students and families in the reliability of our immigration system,” said one senior manager from Nova Scotia, responding to IDP’s October 2024 Canada Sector Survey.
“These policies have also negatively impacted Canada’s reputation as a welcoming country. Repairing this reputational damage will take years,” they added.