India is a country which is known for boasting a young population which has raised its flag high all over the globe. It is also a well acknowledged fact that Indian students amount to the chunk percentage as foreign students in universities abroad, and Canada being one of the nations that benefits of this the most.
However, in an unexpected turn of events, it is seen that the number of Indian students applying for study in Canada has decreased by nearly a dramatic 15 percent with the permit applications for 2023 falling to a still respectable 307,603 from previous year’s overall record of more than 50,000 more students, a whopping 363,484 in strength.
This decrease was significantly visible in the last quarter of the year period when the number of applications for new study permits from India dropped from a total of 145,881 to just 86,562.
Though, it is also to be noted that despite the overall applications decreasing in number, the acceptance rate has actually increased with a record 278,860 study permits being issued to Indians in comparison to last year’s 225,820. students from India increased. This also comes with the fact that Indian students now comprise of over 41% of the total study permit holders in the country.
However, it is not just the case with India as Canadian universities accepted nearly a hundred thousand more students in comparision to last year, raising a big question on if the universities are losing their value and accepting foreign students just to add in to their banks and flaunt the fact that they have a number of international students studying under them.
This is the first annual decline in international student applications from India since the Covid-19 pandemic and can be seen as a summation of multiple factors like political tensions, visa refusal from Canadian authorities, a lack of job opportunities, and high cost of living. Another reason could be the ever rising costs of sending students to Canada for higher education with the dream of a child coming from an average middle class background getting harder and harder to realise.
