International Students Should Exercise Restraint & Caution At This Time
Greetings ladies and gentlemen,
I hope you are all coping with this COVID-19 mess and the tangible impact it has on your aspirations to pursue your studies in Canada. Things are upside down all over the world right now, and I would urge each an every one of you to exercise restraint for now or you might regret it later.
The observation I and others are seeing for now is that higher institutions in Canada, UK, US and others are quick to request that applicants pay for their tuition, not caring whether the applicant gets their visas or not. This is a dangerous trend. Most of them have already converted the programs to online learning, even for students who are already in Canada are studying online. This is now a big problem. I will highlight the issues on ground with respect to Canada and you can take a decision on how to proceed.
1. There is mass hysteria and panic in Canada over this COVID-19 matter, the government and the people are very afraid so they are taking it extremely seriously, (I personally think this COVID-19 response is exaggerated all over the world, but that is another matter for another day).
2. This has made the schools to shift almost all their programs to online learning.
3. The problem with this for international students is that they still want to charge the same amount for online learning as though one was physically present in class.
4. The schools are also quick to request for tuition fees not caring whether the international students will get their visas or not, because the course can be done online. But what about time difference issues?
5. Right now, we don't know when Canada will open its borders to international students.
6. We don't know when air travel will commence.
7. We don't know when the VACs will resume work, many people that have applied are waiting to do their biometric data capture.
8. Some people are also waiting to do their medicals for months now, but they can't.
9. Even those who have obtained their study permit approvals, will need to get a letter of authorization to travel or else they will not be allowed to board their flights into Canada.
10. If international applicants cannot prove that their program cannot be run online, they will not be issued a letter of authorization to travel. So all social science courses, humanity courses, and non-experimental course will likely fall into this category.
So in the light of all these aforementioned issues, I urge all international students to take it easy for now, exercise caution, and wait for clear directives before moving forward with new applications to Canada, or paying any tuition, schools are not keen on refunding monies paid again like before, they would rather have you not have a visa, but study online. They want to eat their cake and have it at the same time. Pay international student fee, study online, but stay back in your country, ONLY A MUGU WILL FALL FOR THAT!! I am sure I do not see any mugus here at the moment, or there any?
I wish you all the best.
Omofar
