12,900 study permits for foreign students will be issued by Nova Scotia in 2024.
12,900 study permits for foreign students will be issued by Nova Scotia in 2024.
The province has disclosed the amount of overseas students it will accept into its post-secondary educational institutions.
The federal government has granted 12,900 study permits to Nova Scotia for the year 2024. This compares to almost 7,000 fewer permits the province gave out to foreign students in 2023.
In October 2023, there were about 16,000 full-time international students enrolled in Nova Scotia.
32 designated learning institutes (DLIs), the only post-secondary institutions in Canada authorized to admit foreign students, will get the study permits from the province. Nova Scotia formally has 41 DLIs, according to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC).
The distribution of the permits is as follows:
11,565 to all ten universities in the province, Nova Scotia Community College, 710 to twelve private career institutions, and 526 to nine language schools.
According to the province, it will also reserve 99 application slots in order to allow for unforeseen events.
“We’ve taken a thoughtful approach to allocating the federal cap across the province, considering many factors like enrolment in our high-needs programs and managing growth in communities,” stated Brian Wong, Minister of Advanced Education for Nova Scotia. Having said that, we will keep pushing the federal government to provide a larger budget.
In an effort to stabilize the number of foreign students studying in the nation and strengthen the sustainability of the system, the International Relations and Cultural Center (IRCC) implemented a federal cap on study permits on January 22. In total, 360,000 study permits for foreign students were anticipated to be issued by Canada in 2024—a 35% decrease from the year before.
Study permit candidates who have received a letter of acceptance from a DLI are eligible to apply for study permits based on the number of Provincial Attestation Letters (PALs) that each province is able to grant. The provinces determine how to give PALs to study permit applicants.
Island of Prince Edward
Prince Edward Island declared on March 7 that it would be issuing 2,000 study licenses to foreign students.
Three DLIs will receive them in turn:
College de l’Ile (105 permits for studies)
Holland College (710 permits for study).
Prince Edward Island University (1185 study permits)
DLIs in PEI will receive PALs from the Department of Workforce, Advanced Learning, and Population. Then, as part of their application for a federal student permit, the DLIs will provide them to candidates who are international students.
Allotments in different provinces
Earlier this month, British Columbia and Ontario disclosed their plans for allocating their PAL allotment.
96% of the study permits allotted will be granted to public colleges and universities by Ontario. The province’s “language schools, private universities, and other institutions” will share the remaining 4%. The number of PALs that the federal government has allotted has not been disclosed by the province.
