Canada is making a major change to its Post-Graduation Work Permit (PGWP) rules for international students who want to study in Canada beginning this fall i.e. from September 22 to December 21, 2020.
The PGWP enables international students to gain Canadian work experience after completing their educational program at a Canadian designated learning institution (DLI).
International students will be able to enrol in online courses while abroad this fall and still be eligible for a Post-Graduation Work Permit after moving to Canada.
International students must have completed a full-time program of at least eight months in length at a DLI in order to be eligible for the PGWP. Their study program must have lead to a diploma, degree, or certificate. The ultimate length of the PGWP depends on the length of the student’s program of study in Canada.
Normally, online courses do not count toward the study requirement for a PGWP application. However, given coronavirus-related travel interruptions around the world, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) is now allowing international students to study online while overseas and still be eligible to apply for the work permit after graduation.
IRCC announced the reform during the evening of May 14, 2020.
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New international students will be able to begin their programs at a Canadian DLI online in fall 2020 and complete up to 50 per cent of the program while abroad, and then still be able to obtain the PGWP to work in Canada after completing their studies.
IRCC also noted that international students will not have time deducted from the length of their PGWP for the period they spent outside of Canada, up to December 31, 2020.
In a hypothetical scenario, a new international student can begin their program at a Canadian DLI online this coming fall, and still be eligible for a PGWP for the maximum three years so long as they arrived to Canada by the end of 2020 and completed a qualifying educational program at a DLI of at least two years in duration.
Nonetheless, this policy reform should prove to be a boon for the Canadian economy since the tuition that international students will pay will help to support jobs at colleges and universities across Canada. Moreover, international students will support economic activity in a number of ways once they arrive to Canada, through their spending, labour, and the taxes they will pay as workers.
Prior to the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the over 640,000 international students in Canada were contributing $22 billion annually to the economy and supporting some 170,000 Canadian jobs.
In early April, IRCC first applied this measure to international students whose courses started in May and June. The May 14 announcement is an extension to the students who will begin their semester in September.
Though international students who received their study permit after March 18 are still not able to come to Canada, new permits are still being processed and IRCC says they will notify new students as to when they are able to travel to Canada again.