Canada welcomes overseas students with a roadmap for citizenship

A student from Shandong Province in eastern China, Fei Jie says that the atmosphere in Canada is truly excellent and she would stay back here for her good health. She is not the lone overseas student in Canada who shares such views and several of them intend to stay back in the nation after completion of their studies, ultimately gaining the citizenship of Canada. This transition of overseas students in acquiring the citizenship of Canada is not accidental. Canada today has presence of several hundred thousand overseas students owing to the strategy of the Canadian government to restructure the population of the nation by welcoming diverse highly skilled and educated overseas students to the nation through its universities. This strategy aims to cater to the aging population of Canada and its slow birth rate as well as to enhance the receipt of taxes to the government’s treasury. Last year November, the Express entry scheme was modified by the government of Canada so as to facilitate the overseas students to acquire the citizenship of Canada. There is also a bill that is yet to be ratified in the Canadian senate which aims to reintroduce the rule that would recognize 50% of the time period spent by overseas students in the universities in Canada in calculating the citizenship’s period of residency. Canada is in need of highly skilled and brilliant migrants to support a sparsely spread and old population. According to the data revealed by Canada’s immigration department the Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada, the immigrants account for three fourths of the yearly growth of the nation’s work force. They are expected to contribute for 100 percent growth in the next ten years. This strategy to be more forthcoming towards the overseas immigrants was carefully based on trends that grew stronger in last ten years which received a formal shape in 2014. For the academic year 2015 -16 the overseas students strength in the universities of Canada grew at 8 percent to reach 350,000. These numbers are approximately equal to one percent of the total population of Canada, as quoted by the NY Times. It is expected that in the next ten years Canada will have around half million overseas students studying in the nation. Out of these more than 50% of the overseas students are expected to remain in the nation, eventually securing the citizenship of Canada, as per the research published by the Canadian Bureau for International Education. A student at the College of the North Atlantic from Bangladesh, Abdullah Mamun says that Canada is facilitating the overseas students to easily acquire the citizenship of the nation. It is an attempt to counter the slow birth rate and aging population, added Mamun. According to the association for educational institutions in Canada, the Canadian Bureau for International Education’s President, Karen McBride Canada has all the necessary ingredients that would appeal to overseas students sand immigrants. It is now globally renowned for quality of the education system and its affordability, as being a safe and tolerant nation that would be attractive to overseas immigrants to more frequently choose the nation as their overseas destination for residing permanently. Globalization of the education in Canada will have lasting and enormous influence on the nation. This will facilitate to connect it to other cultures and nations through the wider perspectives of overseas students and the family ties. These overseas immigrants have all the prospects of becoming citizens of Canada and even rising to office of power in the government. The latest instance is the new Immigration minister of Canada who had arrived to the nation as a Somali refugee.